Change = good

I have always lived my life counter-cyclically (sic), leaving Razorfish before the .com crash, buying what became Schematic at the bottom of the last .com recession and then leaving the film business after a series of Sundance Film Festival hits.

From the outside, these moves seemed mad, but most of them proved to be quite prescient, and often lucrative.  Moreover, I'm driven by a need to be intellectually and creatively challenged; complacency isn't in my vocabulary.   I love to make things, and build teams - and businesses.

So today, I've made an announcement which will catch many by surprise. I have decided to leave the BBC to join DMGT, a large British media conglomerate to become the CEO of the division which holds their digital businesses, Associated Northcliffe Digital (http://and.co.uk).

I'm incredibly proud of the work I've done over the past two years at the BBC: the redesign and transformation of the www, mobile and itv services, BBC iPlayer on all of its platforms and of course the mobile and online personalized homepages. Doing one of these would have been an achievement in itself.  These successes and their resulting recognition and awards, the GSMA award for mobile BBC iPlayer, the Bafta nomination for /programmes and the .net awards for the redesigns would have been impossible without the amazing teams and people I had by my side at the BBC, I will miss them incredibly.

But for now it's on to the future and a new, much larger challenge, and one I hope and believe will be equally, if not more, stimulating and rewarding.  Given the economic and sector transitions in media, publishing, commerce and technology - I have heard opportunity knocking - and can't help myself but open the door and let her in!

Best