technological landscape and evolving how we reached audiences. I was at the BBC until 2008 and, after two years of developing Project Canvas, initially with ITV and BT, I became the founding chief executive at Youview, helping to shape the initial joint venture, launch and scale the platform to three million UK homes with over 200 staff. The track record of innovation speaks for itself – Youview is still arguably best in class for content delivery and discovery and has held continued importance for the UK TV platform ecology. Next, could you tell us about your experience at Origin? I joined Origin in 2019, an advertiser-backed project to develop a platform that measures advertising campaign impact across media. Working initially with Google and Facebook, the work meant connecting a huge ecosystem of advertisers, platforms and agencies. We developed a blueprint for a global technical solution, called Halo, and a UK business framework, which became Origin. Working with a great team and motivated partners, we developed a technical prototype and funding model. That allowed us to take the work from a conceptual framework to a blueprint for implementation, and we secured funding to enable the work to progress to launch. Could you tell us a bit about Roku and what its mission is right now? Roku pioneered streaming to the TV. Today, our TV streaming platform is used by more than 80 million consumers across the world. We connect users to the streaming content they love, enable UK public service broadcasters (PSBs) and other content publishers to build and create value from large audiences, and provide advertisers with unique capabilities to engage consumers.
portfolio, working with creative, commissioning and scheduling arms. Working on the BBC TV portfolio gave me great perspective on the forces shaping the broadcast sector. I started to see how I could help connect the dots between emerging technology and the future of television. What was your time like at the BBC, which was followed by Youview? I started my career at the BBC in the strategy and marketing team, working with channel and commissioning teams. I worked on the new digital TV portfolio, in particular BBC Three, and was part of the BBC One team that overtook ITV as we invested in drama and moved the nightly news to 10pm. It was a big deal back then – when schedules meant everything. I became controller of TV strategy in 2003. I then co-led an editorial strategy review of the whole BBC for the new director general and went on to establish a business strategy function, responsible for partner relationships, commercial, distribution and platform strategy. The work I did at the BBC felt incredibly dynamic; it was about bringing the transition to digital. I was responsible for the BBC’s first YouTube deal in 2006 and we saw how online platforms would become more important in how audiences choose what to watch, alongside big launches of our own like BBC iPlayer in 2007. The key was always keeping tabs on the changing consumer, competitive and
PUSHING BUTTONS Roku is now the streaming platform of choice for more than 80 million consumers worldwide
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