Biographies

Chief Technology Officer

John Linwood is the Chief Technology Officer for the BBC, and he sits within the Future Media & Technology division.

He took up the role in April 2009, and is responsible for delivering the BBC's technology strategy, in a role which encompasses the delivery and management of the broadcast and enterprise technology infrastructure behind all BBC output and overseeing the Corporation's IT requirements.

John joined the BBC from Yahoo!, where he was Senior Vice President of International Engineering, overseeing a staff of 1,600 located across 22 countries, with responsibility for the development, deployment and delivery of all the company's services outside the US.

This included the development of some of Yahoo!'s most successful consumer products including social networking, social media and user-generated content through to more traditional web properties such as media, ecommerce and search.

Prior to Yahoo!, John spent 11 years at Microsoft beginning as an Architectural Consultant in 1993 then progressing to occupy a variety of senior positions within its MSN business.

His final post at Microsoft saw John managing all of MSN's international engineering, driving its global quality of service initiatives and formulating its international hosting strategy as well as international product development.

Before he joined Microsoft John held senior roles in several UK and US-based organisations including the Dodge Group (CTO), Omega Software (CEO) and Mega Ltd where he was the Technical Director.

Previous employment was in his native Zimbabwe where John began as a software developer and systems analyst.