Thunderstruck

French-born Bérangère Andree Mireille Michel is to be the new BBC Group Chief Financial Officer. Bérangère (known as Bey) has spent the past 16 years in various senior leadership positions across retail, supply chain and customer operations in both John Lewis and Waitrose, and most notably as Executive Director for Finance. She announced her intention to depart in April, around the time Jason Parry arrived to take over as Chair, and formally stepped down in September.  

Before John Lewis, Ms Michel spent 12 years at Royal Mail.  

She went to school in the Lycee Joffre, Montpelier, then became a Bachelor of Business Administration studying in the University of Nancy's Business School. Thence to an MBA from Bradford, and qualifying as an Associate Chartered Management Accountant with CIMA in 1999, whilst working for Royal Mail.  

A management magazine asked about her favourite music: "I listen to such a wide range, but yesterday I was driving back from the south of France and we had a Spotify playlist of the best live music on, in the car. My husband thinks I started losing points on my licence when AC/DC came on. It was really fun driving up the motorways listening to AC/DC. Typically, I don’t listen to hard rock, but yesterday that was it. ‘Thunderstruck’ in particular is really good for driving."