Trusties

Two new chums for Lord Patten as BBC Trustees.

Born in Derry/Londonderry and educated at the University of Ulster, Mrs/Dr Aideen McGinley, OBE, has been appointed as the member for Northern Ireland. She's recently been chief executive of Ilex, the Urban Regeneration Company for Derry, on secondment for her role as permanent secretary of the Department of Employment and Learning - but has today announced she's leaving that role later this year; it hasn't been without ups and downs. Before that she's had 25 years' experience in local government in Northern Ireland, and pro bono roles too numerous to mention.  I wonder if this is the first time a civil servant on secondment has been a BBC Governor/Trustee...

Sonita Alleyne, also OBE, was born in Bridgetown, Barbados, and brought up in Leytonstone, east London.  She's a philosophy graduate from Fitzwilliam, Cambridge University. She sang jazz at Cambridge - and joined Jazz Fm in 1989; in 1991 she was made redundant, but formed Somethin' Else, based first in offices over a Camden kebab shop. She freelanced at BBC GLR and elsewhere, but Somethin' Else slowly grew into a major independent supplier of programmes to BBC radio and others. She stepped down as CEO in 2009.  She was a non-executive director at the DCMS from 2000 to 2005.  Earlier this year, she joined Archant Newspapers as a non-exec. She lists fly-fishing as one of her hobbies.