Ashley Highfield To Lead "Kangaroo"
Post categories: innovation
| 11:00 UK time, Monday, 14 April 2008
Ashley Highfield is to lead Project Kangaroo.
Ashley is in Las Vegas for an event so will probably be asleep now, but I hope to have a post from him as soon as possible.
In the meantime, here's the press release explaining more. I'll be putting any reaction from blogs in our .
Here is the text of the email sent by the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s Director General Mark Thompson to all ´óÏó´«Ã½ staff today:
Dear All,
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I am delighted to tell you that Ashley Highfield, Director of Future Media & Technology, is to become CEO of Kangaroo, the video-on-demand joint venture between ´óÏó´«Ã½ Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4.
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I'm sure you will join me in congratulating Ashley in taking up this fantastic opportunity to oversee the launch of an exciting new venture which is an important part of ´óÏó´«Ã½ Worldwide’s future commercial plans.
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At the same time, I'd like to express my thanks to him for all the great work that he has done since he joined the ´óÏó´«Ã½ in 2000. He has been pivotal in transforming the ´óÏó´«Ã½ for the digital age and a champion on the Executive Board for investment in technology. As a result of his leadership, the ´óÏó´«Ã½ is being re-engineered and successfully positioned to take on the enormous challenges of the future.
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Most crucially, he has overseen the phenomenally successful ´óÏó´«Ã½ iPlayer, which received 42 million programme requests in its first three months.
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Under Ashley’s leadership, bbc.co.uk has also experienced a huge growth in popularity. It is now ranked as the third most popular website in the UK, and on average is visited by 20 million people a week. He is also responsible for our mobile services, Information & Archives and the award winning ´óÏó´«Ã½i, the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s digital interactive TV service - as well as overseeing the critical role of Research & Development at Kingswood Warren and the start of the roll-out of the Digital Media Initiative.
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I will be announcing Ashley's leaving date in due course and we will shortly start the process to select and appoint his successor.
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All the best,
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Mark Thompson.
Nick Reynolds is editor, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Internet Blog.
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