Helen Boaden took up her role as Director, BBC News in September 2004.

She began her journalistic career in 1979 with New York radio station WBAI.

On returning to England she graduated in Radio Journalism from the London College of Printing and then worked at Radio Tees and Radio Aire before joining the BBC in 1983 as a news producer with Radio Leeds. She later became a reporter and then Editor of Radio 4's flagship weekly current affairs programme, File On 4. She regularly presented Woman's Hour from Manchester and produced and presented a range of features and documentaries for Radio 4.

She reported on BBC TWO documentary programme Brass Tacks and presented a series for Channel 4. In 1997 she became Head of Business Programmes and a year later she was also made Head of Current Affairs, the first woman to do the job.

Her distinguished BBC career has been recognised with some of the top industry awards. As a reporter, she won the coveted Sony award for Best Current Affairs Programme for her report on Aids in Africa and was named Radio Industrial Journalist and Campaigning Industrial Journalist of the Year by the Industrial Society in 1990 for her investigation into safety standards in the oil industry. As Editor of File On 4, she won a second Sony and a wide range of awards for specialist journalism.

Helen Boaden was appointed Controller of Radio 4 in March 2000 and Controller of BBC 7 in 2002. Radio 4 won the Sony Gold Award for UK Station of the Year in 2003 and again in 2004. Helen has been awarded honorary doctorates by the University of East Anglia (Suffolk College) and the University of Sussex. She is a Fellow of the Radio Academy.

Pat Loughrey was appointed Director, BBC Nations and Regions in May 2000. He has overall responsibility for all the BBC's programmes and services in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (local and network) and for all regional and local services in England. Across the UK this totals 18 television services, 46 radio stations and 55 Where I Live websites, all offering a front door for audiences to the whole BBC portfolio and bringing the BBC closer to the people who pay for it. Pat Loughrey was BBC Controller in Northern Ireland for six years from 1994. During this time BBC Northern Ireland won 10 Royal Television Society awards, a Bafta and an Oscar nomination.

It developed a string of successful network programmes, especially acclaimed dramas such as Ballykissangel and Amongst Women. Radio Ulster became one of the BBC's most successful stations, winning 15 Sony gold awards. As Controller he also introduced Making A Difference, a television programme which celebrated the positive aspects of life in Northern Ireland and allowed stars of the entertainment world to pay tribute to people who had made a genuine difference to their community.

Pat Loughrey was born in County Donegal in 1955 and studied at the University of Ulster, Queen's University, Belfast and Trent University, Ontario. He began his career as a teacher and freelance broadcaster for UTV, BBC and RTE before joining the BBC in 1984 as an education producer. He was also editor of the journal Ulster Local Studies. He produced radio documentary series on the early settlements of Canada, United States and Australia and in 1987 was responsible for the highly acclaimed radio series The People Of Ireland. He edited the subsequent publication of the same name. In 1988 he was appointed Head of Educational Broadcasting, BBC Northern Ireland. He became Head of Programmes, responsible for all local output, in 1991 before becoming Controller three years later. Since he took on the role of Director of Nations and Regions in 2000, he has presided over an era of unprecedented growth for the BBC outside London, including a £50m annual increase in expanded local output in all parts of the UK, rapid expansion of network output from the Nations and the introduction of the BBC's first Open Centres and digital buses.

Pat Loughrey is a member of the BBC's Creative Board and Journalism Board and he leads almost 7,000 staff based in more than 50 main centres across the UK - the largest division in the BBC. He was recently awarded a Fellowship of the Radio Academy.