Channel 4 Hires Chief Financial Officer Amidst Layoffs

Channel 4 has hired a Chief Financial Officer amidst its 250-staff layoff program.

The network has brought in Lucy Thomas in the expanded CFO role. Deadline revealed that Finance Director Vince Russell was leaving at the end of last year after five years.

Reporting to CEO Alex Mahon, Thomas will lead finance across the public broadcaster. She will act as a business partner to Mahon and the executive team, identifying commercial and strategic opportunities and supporting the digital transformation of the business.

She was most recently Chief Financial & Operating Officer at Bauer Audio, where she led a commercial finance team spanning nine markets across Europe. Prior to this, she spent more than 20 years at Sky, progressing through a range of Commercial Finance Director and Commercial MD roles before becoming Group Chief Data Officer.

“Lucy has extensive experience of media industry transformation and joins us at a crucial time, as we implement our ambitious strategy to protect our long-term sustainability and become the world’s first public service streamer,” said Mahon. “Lucy is an innovative, data-driven and strategically focused leader, and I have no doubt she will have tremendous impact at Channel 4.”

Thomas will take up her role on April 22, a few weeks after Channel 4 began implementing its layoffs program. That program is seeing staff numbers reduced by around 16% including multiple TV commissioners in response to a tricky market.

The network is pairing the layoffs with a Fast Forward blueprint that will soon see the sale of its 30-year-old Horseferry Road premises alongside three pillars: digital growth and transformation, diversifying new business and “reengineering the business for a digital-first world.”

Channel 4 is making the cuts – the deepest since the 2008 global financial meltdown – in response to a floundering ad market that shows little sign of improving.