Paul Gibbs

Paul Gibbs, who died this week after a doughty and inspiring battle with cancer, caught one of the waves started at BBC News by John Birt and rode it with style, energy and humour.

Birt's arrival in 1987 as deputy DG initially, led to the setting up of "specialist units". One was to be the "Business and Economics Unit". By 1990, Birt realised that units without output were pretty pointless, and Paul, a BBC News trainee who'd joined in 1977, stepped forward to deliver. The Financial World Tonight was well established on Radio 4, as was a regular business slot on the Six O'Clock radio bulletin, but there were no tv equivalents. Paul started Business Breakfast on BBC1, first as a daily half-hour, and then as a full hour from 6am to 7am - key presenters were Paul Burden (Rachel's dad), who Paul had worked with as a producer on Today, and Sara Coburn. Then came daily business output for the Birt version of BBC World News; and Paul launched Richard Quest on an unsuspecting international tv audience, with World Business Report from New York.

In 1994, Paul secured a slot on BBC2, for what was to become Working Lunch. He'd been quietly developing the raw talent of Adrian Chiles, and saw an opportunity to give him a full working day with an early morning slot on the new Radio 5Live, to be called Wake Up To Money. I knew Paul from his days on Today - I was on Newsbeat, across the corridor - and his can-do confidence was infectious, and as memorable as his John Wayne-gait. In early 1994, I was still to satisfy Jenny Abramsky with presenters for 5Live Breakfast - Paul said "Don't worry about business slots - I've got this Brummie you'll love". He was right.

Paul ran all that tv output for 13 years. He was creative, inventive, and did more with budgets than ever looked feasible. Alongside him, the more serious Business and Economics Unit, where laboured occasionally the impenetrable Peter Jay, grew and grew. By 2007, it had become "a 24-hour, tri-media operation of around 160 journalists and support staff producing 11 hours of business programming every weekday and full online and text services."  Many business tv channels are run on fewer staff.

Paul's fun was in the programmes - challenging bright new producers and presenters to cover chewy stories in new, fresh and accessible ways. When you see good, entertaining business reporting (occasionally) on MSNBC, Bloomberg and others, it's more down to Paul's pioneering than you know.