Member Article

BBC boss joins The Sage

One of the sacrificial lambs of last week’s BBC controversy has joined a North East arts institution. Former Radio 2 controller Lesley Douglas was announced as the latest member of The Sage Gateshead’s Board of Trustees over the weekend.

Newcastle-born Ms Douglas resigned her former position last week as a result of the media storm surrounding Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand’s phone calls to the actor Andrew Sachs (which we promise never to mention again). She will take up her position immediately, joining other board members such as Lord Puttnam and Malcolm Gerrie, creator of The Tube.

Ms Douglas was approached about the position earlier in the year, and recent events allowed her to join The Sage sooner than expected.

She said: “I am very proud to have been asked to become a Trustee of The Sage Gateshead - it combines two things close to my heart: music and the North East.”

Lord Puttnam said: “Lesley has played an incalculable role in deepening and broadening interest across the whole spectrum of popular music in Britain. Everyone at The Sage Gateshead is overjoyed at her decision to join us and help to develop The Sage Gateshead as the foremost music venue in the country.”

Lesley Douglas has been Controller of both BBC popular music and controller of BBC Radio 2 and 6 Music. She won top prize at the 2004 Music Industry Woman Of The Year Awards, is a Fellow of the Radio Academy and was a trustee of BBC Children in Need.

The Sage Gateshead’s General Director, Anthony Sargent, said: “Having spent fourteen years working within the BBC I have seen and admired at first hand Lesley’s deep musical knowledge and appetite; her determination to share that knowledge and appetite with the broadest of publics, and her visionary instincts for where the music business is heading.

“I am enormously happy and proud that she has agreed to join the Board of The Sage Gateshead, knowing what a significant contribution she will make to our future.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .