Lorraine Heggessey

Lorraine Heggessey is a trailblazing business leader, who has driven success and transformation in a range of high-profile roles in the public, private and third sector. She has been directly associated with many of the UK’s biggest hit television formats.

The first female controller of BBC 1, Lorraine led the channel to become the most popular in Britain, overtaking its main competitor, ITV1, for the first time. With an annual budget of £1billion, she revamped Saturday nights introducing flagship hit shows including Strictly Come Dancing and the new Dr Who. She also brought additional dramas into the schedule many of which became long running series such as Spooks and Waking the Dead.

Moving on to become CEO of talkbackThames, her creative leadership and exceptional ability to motivate talent to drive commercial success revitalized the programming portfolio and saw the introduction of a new digital division. Her tenure also included the introduction of hit entertainment shows, including Britain’s Got Talent and Take Me Out, and resulted in profits increasing by over 50% in her first two years.

In 2012, in search of a new challenge, she secured private equity investment from LDC for her vision to build a new independent production group through a combination of acquisitions and backing start-ups. As Executive Chair, Lorraine led Boom Pictures through several deals in quick succession to build the 7th largest independent production company in Britain (worth c£100 million with offices worldwide). It was subsequently acquired by ITV in 2015 and renamed Two Four Group.

Lorraine has been the Independent External Adviser to Channel 4’s Growth Fund since 2015. The fund was set up to invest in small to medium sized indie production companies and specifically to back companies with diverse leadership or those based in the Nations & Regions. Lorraine assesses the creative potential of companies that the fund is considering for investment and works closely with the portfolio companies’ CEOS offering strategic advice to help them to be as creatively and commercially successful as possible.

In a diversion from her media career, Lorraine held a high profile charity role as CEO of The Royal Foundation of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. With a brief to use her business acumen to professionalise and grow the Foundation, she helped develop and refine its unique model of venture philanthropy that incubates initiatives to tackle some of today’s biggest challenges. This included mental health – through the Heads Together campaign – helping disadvantaged young people, supporting wounded, sick and injured veterans and environmental projects.

A Fellow of the Royal Television Society and frequent judge for BAFTA and the RTS. She is also Chair of the Grierson Trust, which celebrates and promotes documentary excellence through its annual awards and opens doors to the industry for young people from diverse backgrounds whose voices might otherwise not be heard. She is a regular contributor to the Today Programme and Newsnight on media topics.