More Rona

Did the subs on the announcements pages at the Times have some sort of inside track ? On August 28, Rona Fairhead was honoured with the lead birthday photo, notching up her 53rd. On Saturday, the DCMS chose to announce her as their preferred choice as BBC Chairman. Rona will spend a frantic 10 days boning up on the BBC past and present, before an appearance next Tuesday before Whittingdale's Wolfhounds on the Culture Select Committee. They will approve her appointment, but seek the exhilaration of some flesh wounds along the way.

Rona's been a rather private business leader up until now. I can find no photos of her time as Head Girl at Yarm School, nor of her performances with the Cambridge University Light Entertainment Society from 1980-83. There is evidence that she's retained some flat vowels from the North of England, in this video (fourth one down) from last year.

We've mentioned her start with consultant Bain's; she also served as an analyst with Morgan Stanley, alongside now-deceased Cambridge friend Gavin MacDonald. Then she moved to Short Brothers in Northern Ireland, as it morphed into Bombardier, before joining ICI in the North East as Executive Vice President Strategy and Group Financial Control. Helping the company move out of bulk chemicals into sexier smaller stuff, she took some pleasure from the use of RONAs inside the organisation as a measure of "Return on net assets".

In 2001, she moved south to Pearson, joining as Deputy Finance Director. Within five years she was running the Financial Times as CEO. She'd also picked up a non-exec role at HSBC, and the start of some US trips with the non-exec chair of HSBC America. There was more selling off at Pearson - French newspaper group Les Echos in 2007 for £190m, a  stake in Interactive Data in 2010 for £1.2bn, and a stake in FTSE International in 2011, for £540m. Perhaps unsurprisingly, rumours grew that the FT itself was available. It didn't happen, but last year, Rona lost out in the battle for the top job at Pearson and left - with a pay-off of over £1m and shares thought to be worth over £3m.

In 2010, she was announced as a non-executive board member of the Cabinet Office (fiefdom of Sir Jeremy Heywood, lead interviewer for this round of the BBC Trust recruitment). She's also a Government Business Adviser, as, spookily, is Lord Kakkar, also on the Trust recruitment panel. She rents a cottage on the Highclere Estate, as does George Osborne. She lives in a posh house in Holland Park - posh enough to stop Google Streetview poking about. She flies - and is a member of Bournemouth Flying Club, a serious top-end training operation. With her appointment to the PepsiCo board, one might wonder if she thought of flying herself to the States occasionally ?