Helen Boaden

Helen Boaden (born 1 March 1956) 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.

Boaden is a Fellow of The Radio Academy, and in May 2019 she joined the board of the UK Statistics Authority for a period of three years.

Early life Boaden was born on 1 March 1956 in Colchester in Essex. Her parents, William Boaden and Barbara Mary Abbott, married in 1954. They lived on Himley Green in Linslade.

Her father was a further education lecturer in geography and then worked for a teaching union. She says that she came "from one of those families where there was quite a lot of shouting and plates whizzing through the air".

Boaden says that she found school "a great relief from home life because it was calm and ordered". She revisited the Cedars School in May 2002, and again in May 2003.

Life and career Boaden began her career in 1978 as a care assistant with disturbed adolescents in the London Borough of Hackney. In 2004, she succeeded Richard Sambrook as Director of BBC News.

Boaden received criticism following the 7 July terror attacks in London when she issued a memo instructing BBC staff not to refer to the perpetrators as terrorists, arguing that the term "can be a barrier rather than aid to understanding". Former BBC reporter Martin Bell was one of those who condemned the memo, accusing the BBC of being "overcautious" and noting that the attackers seemed to meet the definition of terrorists. Writing in The Spectator, Michael Vestey suggested "it's almost as if the BBC is afraid of offending suicide bombers in the Muslim world".

In December 2012, Boaden was asked to temporarily step down from her position as the Director of BBC News while the BBC awaited the results of Operation Yewtree, a wide-ranging police investigation of sexual abuse, primarily of children, by former BBC presenter Jimmy Savile (who died in 2011) and others. A second and parallel investigation, launched by the BBC into possible management failings at the corporation, called the 'Pollard Report' after the lead investigator, Nick Pollard (a former senior executive at Sky News), criticised the BBC and several executive members for continuing with plans to celebrate Savile's life, despite apparently having received advance information that Savile was being investigated for multiple cases of sexual abuse. The report explicitly criticised Boaden for having handled the matter too casually. Boaden returned to her position later the same month. by incoming director-general Tony Hall. Boaden resigned from the BBC in September 2016. Her husband is a newspaper journalist.