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Ah, the wonderful world of opera and ballet. The newest non-executive director BBC Trustee is to be Nick Prettejohn. Apart a range of finance jobs, he was also a Trustee of the Royal Opera House from 2005. When Lord Hall was Chief Executive.

Nick (Balliol, Oxford, 1st Class Honours in PPE) was President of the Oxford Union, debating alongside William Hague, who once recalled that "a chap called Prettejohn had the habit of filling us up with an enormous amount of booze before we went down to debate". He started in business in 1982 as a researcher for management consultants Bain, rising to partner in 1988. Thence it was on to venture capitalists Apax Partners. Other companies in his cv: National Freight Corporation, quite a lot of roles, including the top jobs, in Prudential, Legal and General, and Lloyd's of London.

The Prettejohn name is thought to have first surfaced in the Devon village of Stokenham, in the 16th century, and is probably a corruption of the French "Petit Jean". Our Nick went to Taunton School; his dad was a consultant dermatologist in the town.