Go East

I hope this isn't market sensitive, but John Tate, former Director of Strategy at the BBC - and Chairman of the commercial subsidiary BBC Studios and Post-production - has left the building.

There clearly wasn't long-term room for John after the appointment of James Purnell, so John was graciously given a "project" rather than payment in lieu of notice (unloved by the PAC) as he looked for new opportunities. One has emerged in the east, and John is now Chief Operating Officer at Tamkeen, an investment and project management company of the Abu Dhabi Crown Prince's Executive Affairs Authority.

But who is the new Chairman of BBC Studios and Post-production - a job which earned John £80k p.a.? The website currently shows three non-executive directors - the lovely Daniel Danker, a former BBC boss of on-demand, now with Shazam; the already-very well-paid-and-presumably-quite-busy Dominic Coles, Director of Operations; and we'll-never know-quite-how-much-he's-paid, Alan Yentob, Creative Director, presenter and pensioner.

• CEO of Tamkeen is Jason Harborow, former chief executive of the Liverpool Culture Company, a job which didn't end well. Jason is also a volunteer touch rugby coach at New York University Abu Dhabi. He has imposed style on Tamkeen, as this extract from a blog post by graphic design student Benny Lu shows...

Managing director Jason Harborow invited us to tour around Tamkeen’s working space and to breathe in their working atmosphere. The whole office shared a common set of theme colors, which was green, dark grey and white—adequately synchronized with the logo we encountered upon arrival. Mr. Harborow insisted that everything in the office had to share the fundamental elements of their brand identity; for instance, the walls, the patterns on the glass vitrines that enclosed the meeting rooms, the writing pad, the drinking glasses, the rollerball pens, their new working desk arrangements, dress codes, and the USBs that contained our brief from Tamkeen.....

Mr. Harborow shared his insight into developing a successful brand by introducing projects he directed, including Liverpool: European Capital of Culture in 2008, Surrey Sports Park and Tamkeen. By presenting these projects of different scales and properties, he gave us the principles and visions a brand designer should be equipped with. I was most fascinated by the renewal of Liverpool. Mr. Harborow believed that this city required an “attractor brand” to invigorate its economic recession, and also took the initiative to revive Liverpool while competing for the European Capital of Culture in 2008. The exposure effect of the logo they designed resulted in the wide endorsement of the city. Yet the key that led to this success seemed to lie in the appropriate management of the Pareto Principle. Also called the 80/20 Rule, the Pareto Principle states that around 80% of the effect comes from approximately 20% of the cause. Instead of fine-tuning every detail of Liverpool’s specialties, Mr. Harborow’s team simply focused on Beatles, who were world renowned, and Liverpool FC, which can agglomerate the morale of the local people. This decision led to a massive success while taking into account the resources available.