Gavyn Davies, OBE is a former Goldman Sachs partner and multi-millionaire who was the chairman of the BBC from 2001 until 2004. On 28 January 2004 he announced that he was resigning his BBC post following the publication of the Hutton Inquiry report which heavily criticised the organisation.
Early life and business career
Davies was born in Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, where his father was head teacher at what was then its only black high school, before moving to the UK in 1961. He was educated at Taunton's School, Southampton, St. John's College, Cambridge and Balliol College, Oxford, where he conducted research. He worked in Harold Wilson's Policy Unit from 1974–76 and then as an economic advisor to James Callaghan from 1976–1979. Afterwards he had stints as Chief Economist at Simon & Coates and Goldman Sachs. He was later promoted to international managing director of the bank. During this time he also served as one of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's "wise men" during the 1992–1997 Parliament. Davies repeatedly came under criticism for his ties to Enron.
BBC period
In 1999 he chaired an inquiry into the future funding of the BBC. His suggestions – to sell off a portion of BBC Worldwide and to raise the television licence fee by around 20% in order to fund new digital channels - were swiftly rejected by the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee. In January 2001 he was appointed a vice-chairman of the BBC. He was promoted to chairman just 10 months later for a five-year term after being recommended by Tessa Jowell. Upon becoming Chairman Davies resigned his membership of the Labour Party. In January 2004, he resigned after the publication of the Hutton Inquiry. It heavily criticised the BBC's news reporting that Davies had supported. In his resignation statement he said he was "happy to accept... ultimate responsibility" for everything the BBC does. However, he raised questions about the conclusions of Lord Hutton, including the question of the use of unverifiable sources and possible threats to the freedom of the press. Davies has in the past donated part of his wealth to the Labour Party of whom he had been a long-term supporter. His appointment as BBC chairman sparked allegations of cronyism from Opposition political parties - Davies' wife Sue Nye was a private secretary of Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the pair are known to be good friends. Defenders of the appointment pointed out that Davies had been selected by a panel independent of Government. It has been suggested that the behaviour of Davies and Greg Dyke during the David Kelly affair was in part due to a wish to demonstrate their independence of government. Since his resignation, he has become somewhat of a critic of the then Labour government.
Post BBC career
In 2005 he set up a $1.35 Billion hedge fund to invest in macroeconomic situations. He wrote a weekly column on mathematics and statistics, Gavyn Davies does the maths, on Thursdays for The Guardian newspaper. He is currently working as a founding partner of Active Private Equity, Anthos Capital, and Prisma Capital Partners, as well as Chairman of Fulcrum Asset Management. Since August 2010 on macroeconomics for Financial Times.
Personal life
Davies and his wife live in Wandsworth, having moved there to give their daughter the opportunity to attend a better school. They also have two sons and a further home in Croyde, Devon.
