Jessica Cecil

Jessica Cecil works both commercially and in publicly-funded bodies grappling with the challenges new technology is throwing at the media and creative industries. While at the BBC she negotiated and led the Trusted News Initiative, the world’s
only alliance of the biggest tech companies and news organisations, alerting each other fast to the most harmful forms of disinformation. As a Visiting Fellow at Oxford University’s Reuters Institute, she chaired a series of roundtables in 2023 where tech and news companies considered the implications – both good and bad - of Generative AI for the news industry. In the commercial sector she is an advisor at a venture capital company investing in media startups that use emerging tech like AI and spatial computing.

She knows from her extensive experience as a senior executive how broadcasting works. She was Chief of Staff to four BBC Directors-General. Before that, she was a journalist and a senior producer on Newsnight, and an Emmy-nominated executive producer. She has made many finely-judged editorial, operational and strategic decisions and is used to defending them in the glare of public scrutiny.

Jessica is an experienced non-executive director and chairs committees at the Digital Catapult and at Bristol University, and is a Council member at Chatham House. She is a tech optimist, believing it can create opportunities for everyone. One of her proudest achievements was leading the BBC’s Make It Digital programme which resulted in the creation of the BBC micro:bit computer that has helped tens of millions of children in the UK and 70 other countries learn computer coding