Gareth Jones

The sad case of "69-year-old Hove man", Gareth Jones, apparently swept out to sea trying to help his cockapoo on a walk in Portslade, made headlines yesterday. 

Beeboids from the Greg Dyke era will remember him as "Professor Gaz", at the Director General's side for over a year as sounding board, Guinness-companion and HR consigliere. 

He began as a University academic in Economic and Social Studies at the University of East Anglia before moving to the London Business School, where he joined the Organisational Behaviour Group. Gareth Jones later joined Polygram and was appointed Senior Vice President for Polygram’s global human resources. In 1996 he reverted to academia when he became the BT Professor of Organisational Development at Henley. 

At the BBC under Dyke, he was formally billed as Director of Human Resources and Internal Communications; he expected to last two years, but left early. His joint legacy in public service broadcasting - a new structure diagram, showing divisions as petals; a range of slogans, "One BBC", "Making it happen" and "Just Imagine".  "Cut the cr*p" was probably just Greg's.