Expertise

In a week in which some senior BBC executives have had pay rises of up to 15%, let's look at the BBC's Director of Reward, called before the Remuneration Committee which has to approve top salaries.

It's currently Sally-Anne Borrill (Holywell School and Leeds University, BA in Textile Design) who joined Auntie a year ago, and currently commutes two-hours each way from Buxton to Birmingham. She spent 12 years working for Siemens, starting as a generalist HR Manager, and acquiring skills on the job.

 “Having been an HR Manager, the board were shocked at how financially aware I’ve become through having to understand how we finance our fleet of cars for example. I also now say to myself ‘if I can understand this then I can easily understand pensions and payroll’. I had to put in a web based expenses system and no-one had been able to do it but I did. When I was asked to do the Compensations and Benefits role I thought, ‘well I’ll give it a go’ and I found that I could actually learn it if I took the time!”

Siemens signed a £2bn ten year contract with the BBC in 2004 to provide core technology services, with many BBC staff being TUPE'd across. Sally-Anne left Siemens in 2010, as the BBC contract was transferred to ATOS, for a job with T-Mobile. Just before joining the BBC, she spent eight months with the supermarket chain Morrisons.