BBC head: A career spanning banking to broadcasting

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New BBC head leaves Labour over bias row

Gavyn Davies' links with the Labour establishment stretch back more than 20 years to his days as a high-flying young economist working in Downing Street for Harold Wilson and James Callaghan.

From there he embarked on a formidable City career, amassing a multimillion-pound fortune. But since Labour returned to power political interests have filled an increasing amount of his time.

He and his wife, Sue Nye, who is Gordon Brown's political secretary, regard the Chancellor as a close personal friend. Mr Davies has friendships with other senior Labour figures including Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson.

Mr Davies was born in 1950 in Zimbabwe, then Southern Rhodesia. His parents, who were schoolteachers from Wales, moved to Britain when he was 11 and he attended grammar school in Somerset. A Labour Party member since his teens, he went to Cambridge, where he gained a First, and then studied further at Oxford where his tutor described him as "outstandingly clever".

After working for the Labour governments of the 1970s, he moved to the City when Margaret Thatcher came to power. He rose to become chief international economist at Goldman Sachs, and is now worth between £100m and £150m.

He and his family live in Wandsworth, south London, with a second home in Devon, complete with pink-lined swimming pool and waterfall, heated to 80F all year round. He sees no contradiction between socialist beliefs and wealth. "You would have to do badly in the City not to make money. It has never been on my agenda to do badly," he once said.

He is described as restrained, cautious, a man possibly lacking the charisma to fight the BBC's cause in the difficult years ahead, when its charter will come up for renewal. But he has determination and an independence of mind and insists he will keep his distance from Labour officials.

Touted as a possible deputy governor of the Bank of England a few years ago, he made clear that he would take the post only if his succession to the top job was assured. The promises were not forthcoming and he declined. Some cynics suggested his proximity to the Labour leadership torpedoed his hopes of getting the job.

When he chaired an inquiry into the future of the BBC, he produced a series of proposals, notably a licence fee supplement to fund the expansion of digital services, which infuriated John Birt, who was director general at the time.

He is a fervent believer in the public service broadcasting ethos. "Once the BBC is destroyed or fatally weakened, there may be no going back," he wrote as long ago as 1991. "It would be very difficult to recreate 70 years of public service broadcasting if it disappeared." Now he has the power to ensure it does not.