Media guru makes waves on the air

Pembroke

Investors in Golden Rose, the radio company planning to float later this year, will be interested to know that Roger Parry, the gregarious media guru, has taken a £300,000 interest in the tiny company.

After graduating in economics from Oxford, Mr Parry worked as PA to Maurice Saatchi in the early days of the adman's empire-building.

He moved to the BBC, where his innovative business programme supplanted Radio 4's morning God slot, prompting Bruce Kent, the CND leader and former monsignor, to complain that Mammon had finally conquered holiness. After a stint at McKinsey's he landed at Aegis, the media buying group.

Not all his entrepreneurial ventures have succeeded: attempts to run the Windsor-Slough railway in 1984, to buy LBC in 1983 and, later, set up a radio syndication service, came to nothing. However, Golden Rose's backers will be glad to hear his fortunes turned last year when he beat Lady Porter's consortium in the bid for LBC's radio franchise and then cleared a £1m profit when his party sold the franchise to Reuters.