Mark Thompson

Mark became President and Chief Executive Officer of The New York Times Company in November 2012. Since that time, he has directed the Company’s strategy and presided over an expansion of its digital and global operations.

Prior to that, he served as Director-General of the BBC from 2004, where he ensured that it remained a leading innovator with the launch of services like the BBC iPlayer. Mark first joined the BBC in 1979 as a production trainee. He left for two years in 2002 to become Chief Executive Officer of Channel 4 Television before returning in 2004 as Director-General.

In autumn 2012, he was Visiting Professor of Rhetoric and the Art of Public Persuasion at the University of Oxford.

His book, Enough Said: What’s Gone Wrong with the Language of Politics? is based on the lectures he gave there and was published in both the UK and US in September 2016.

Mark Thompson was educated at Stonyhurst College and Merton College Oxford. In his teens, he lived near Stratford-upon-Avon and has since been a regular visitor to the RSC.