Russell Merryman heads the development of Al Jazeera's web, mobile and broadband services. A broadcast journalist since 1988, he joined BBC News Online in 2000 to work on their fledgling Interactive TV project and managed the development of many interactive applications, including the BBC's 24/7 Video News Interactive service, which launched in November 2001 and won the Royal Television Society Award for Technical Innovation in 2002.

Russell also worked on web, broadband, mobile and interactive television projects for a wide range of BBC programmes including Question Time, Newsnight, Panorama, the 2001 and 2003 election results specials and the 2004 Olympics