The BBC has appointed an acting chairman following the ousting of Richard Sharp in April.
Elan Closs Stephens has been appointed to the position by UK Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer. She will take over from Sharp once he steps down on June 27.
Closs Stephens has been a non-executive director of the board since 2017. Prior to that, she was the BBC Trust’s trustee for Wales and has also served as chair of the commercial holdings board of BBC Studios, chair of Welsh broadcaster SC4 and is currently Pro of Aberystwyth University -Chancellor and Professor Emerita in Communications and Creative Industries.
She will remain acting chairman of the BBC until a new, permanent chairman is found following a government search and application process.
“It is a great honor to be appointed acting chairman by the Secretary of State and I am grateful to my fellow board members for the confidence they have placed in me,” said Closs Stephens. “As a board we will champion the license fee payer across the UK; ensuring the BBC is a vital partner to the UK’s creative industries; maintain trust and drive change to make the BBC fit for a rapidly changing media landscape. There is a lot of work to be done.”
Sharp resigned in April after a parliamentary inquiry found he had breached public appointment rules when he failed to disclose his ties to then Prime Minister Boris Johnson during the application process. He stayed on as interim chairman in June.
Months before his appointment in January 2021, Sharp, a banker and former president of the Royal Academy of Arts, helped Johnson secure a sizable loan. Soon after, Johnson recommended him for the position of BBC chairman, with the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (as it was then known) appointing him a short time later.
After news of Sharp’s involvement in Johnson’s financial affairs was published in Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper, the DCMS commission conducted an investigation that found Sharp’s failure to explain the apparent conflict of interest to constitute a “significant error of judgement”. Sharp resigned two months later.
As a public service broadcaster, the BBC occupies a unique position in the media landscape. It operates under a “royal charter” (a royal charter is a way of establishing an organization and giving it an independent legal personality, similar to a corporation) through the DCMS. The prime minister has the final say on the appointment of the chairman of the BBC, but is following the advice of the culture minister.