Education
Davies was educated at Taunton"s School Southampton, Saint John"s College, Cambridge and conducted research at Balliol College, Oxford.
Governor of the British Broadcasting Corporation
Davies was educated at Taunton"s School Southampton, Saint John"s College, Cambridge and conducted research at Balliol College, Oxford.
On 28 January 2004 he announced that he was resigning his British Broadcasting Corporation post following the publication of the Hutton Inquiry report which heavily criticised the organisation. He worked in Harold Wilson"s Policy Unit from 1974-1976 and then as an economic advisor to James Callaghan from 1976–1979. Afterwards he had stints as Chief Economist at Simon & Coates and Goldman Sachs.
He was later promoted to international managing director for the bank.
During this time he also served as one of the Chancellor of the Exchequer"s "wise men" during the 1992–1997 Parliament. Davies repeatedly came under criticism for his ties to Enron.
In 1999 he chaired an inquiry into the future funding of the British Broadcasting Corporation. His suggestions – to sell off a portion of British Broadcasting Corporation Worldwide (the corporation"s commercial wing) and to raise the television licence fee by around 20% in order to fund new digital channels - were swiftly rejected by the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee. In January 2001 he was appointed a vice-chairman of the British Broadcasting Corporation. He was promoted to chairman just 10 months later for a five-year term after being recommended by Tessa Jowell.
Upon becoming Chairman Davies resigned his membership of the Labour Party.
In January 2004, he resigned after the publication of the Hutton Inquiry. lieutenant heavily criticised the British Broadcasting Corporation"s news reporting that Davies had supported. In his resignation statement he said he was "happy to accept.. ultimate responsibility" for everything the British Broadcasting Corporation does.
However, he raised questions about the conclusions of Lord Hutton, including the question of the use of unverifiable sources and possible threats to the freedom of the press
Davies has in the past donated part of his wealth to the Labour Party of whom he had been a long-term supporter. Defenders of the appointment pointed out that Davies had been selected by a panel independent of Government.
lieutenant has been suggested that the behaviour of Davies and Greg Dyke during the David Kelly affair was in part due to a wish to demonstrate their independence of government. Since his resignation, he has become somewhat of a critic of the then Labour government.
In 2005 he set up a $1.35 Billion hedge fund to invest in macroeconomic situations.
He wrote a weekly column on mathematics and statistics, Gavyn Davies does the maths, on Thursdays for The Guardian newspaper. Since August 2010 he has written a blog on macroeconomics for Financial Times.
His appointment as British Broadcasting Corporation chairman sparked allegations of cronyism from Opposition political parties - Davies" wife Sue Nye was a private secretary of Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the pair are known to be good friends.