Could Michelle Guthrie be the next ABC managing director?

By Dan Barrett

Speculation continues to build over the appointment of the new managing director of the ABC. Today the Fairfax papers are reporting that Google executive Michelle Guthrie is the ABC Board's top choice for the role.

Joe Aston from The AFR initially reported of Guthrie's "imminent appointment" this morning, with Fairfax's Matthew Knott backing the news this afternoon. Other high profile names rumoured to be in contention include SBS managing director Michael Ebeid, and former Foxtel managing director Kim Williams. Williams has also served as the CEO of News Limited. Yesterday Knott reported that Williams was deemed to be too-polarising a figure.

Guthrie has extensive experience in television, having worked in legal/business development at both BSkyB and Foxtel. After three years as executive vice president of business development at Star TV in Hong Kong, Guthrie was appointed to the CEO position where she served for four years. Guthrie then took on the managing director role at private equity firm Providence Equity Partners before moving on to work for Google.

[ot-video type="youtube" url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oIYjVtrRNs"]

Coming from Google, an innovation-focused company that has a strong focus on the mobile space, making a career shift towards a multiplatform media organisation such as the ABC should be a relatively fluid move for a digitally savvy executive such as Guthrie.

Current ABC managing director Mark Scott is due to step down from his role next July, but may depart from the role earlier to facilitate the transition to Guthrie commencing.

Photo: “Michelle Guthrie” by World Economic Forum is licensed under CC BY 2.0