Sultans of swing

 Tim Davie, BBC DG, has been in Cambridge, and has granted an interview to Isabella Dowden of Varsity. They reflected on Tim's time at Selwyn College; full feature here. 

Alongside being Social Secretary of the well-loved Selwyn Snow Ball, he was also President of his JCR – “the one and only time I’ve ever been elected by popular mandate!”, he quips. It was also during these years that Davie’s business-savvy attitude took root, albeit in an unexpected – and slightly unorthodox – setting: “I had a very good friend who was really into music, and we ended up forming a nightclub,” he reveals. Sultan’s was housed in the basement of a restaurant in the city centre, becoming known for its “very early house music – we’re talking in the 1980s here!”. Davie fondly recalls the enterprise’s modest success: “We used to take home a bag of cash at the end of a good evening. We did get student grants at the time, but let’s just say that made life a little easier!” Perhaps it is little wonder that Davie was recruited by Procter & Gamble as a marketing trainee while still a student, setting him on a path that would eventually lead to the boardrooms of global business at PepsiCo, and in 2020, the helm of the BBC.