Helen Boaden was born on 1 March 1956 and is a British former broadcasting executive who spent more than 30 years working for the BBC, including as Director of Radio between February 2013 and September 2016.
16 Facts About Helen Boaden
2.
Helen Boaden was born on 1 March 1956 in Colchester in Essex.
3.
Helen Boaden's father was an FE lecturer in geography and then worked for a teaching union.
4.
Helen Boaden says that she came "from one of those families where there was quite a lot of shouting and plates whizzing through the air".
5.
Helen Boaden says that she found school "a great relief from home life because it was calm and ordered".
6.
Helen Boaden was educated at Rushmere junior school and Northgate Grammar School in the large county town of Ipswich in Suffolk, and at Cedars Grammar School in the town of Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire, followed by the University of Sussex, where she gained a BA Honours in English literature, and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1999, where she gained an MBA.
7.
Helen Boaden began her career in 1978 as a care assistant with disturbed adolescents in the London Borough of Hackney.
8.
Helen Boaden worked from the BBC in Manchester as a presenter for Woman's Hour and later presented other documentaries for Radio 4, and for the Brass Tacks political programme on BBC 2.
9.
Helen Boaden was Controller of BBC Radio 4 from March 2000 until 20 September 2004, superseded by Mark Damazer.
10.
Helen Boaden became Controller of BBC7 in 2002, when the station was launched.
11.
The report explicitly criticised Helen Boaden for having handled the matter too casually.
12.
In February 2013, Helen Boaden was appointed director of radio by incoming director-general Tony Hall.
13.
Helen Boaden has won Sony Awards for a programme on AIDS in Africa, and bullying in Feltham Young Offenders Institution when at File on 4.
14.
In 1990, Helen Boaden won awards from the Industrial Society for her work on safety standards in the oil industry.
15.
Helen Boaden has honorary degrees from Suffolk College, the University of Sussex, and the University of York.
16.
Helen Boaden is on the committee of the Sony Radio Academy.