Education
Forgan was educated at Benenden School, Kent, and Street Hugh"s College, Oxford, then an all-female college.
Forgan was educated at Benenden School, Kent, and Street Hugh"s College, Oxford, then an all-female college.
She initially worked on newspapers starting with the Teheran Journal as Arts Editor 1967-1968, at the Hampstead and Highgate Express (1969-1974), and on London"s Evening Standard (1974-1978, and later as a columnist 1997-1998). She was editor of The Guardian"s women"s pages from 1978 to 1982, a Guardian columnist during 1997 and 1998, becoming a non-executive director of the Guardian Media Group from 1998. Forgan was a founding commissioning editor and then Director of Programmes at the United Kingdom"s Channel 4 from 1981 to 1990.
She joined the British Broadcasting Corporation in 1993 to become Managing Director, British Broadcasting Corporation Network Radio where she developed the format for British Broadcasting Corporation Radio Five Live and launched the Dictionary of American Biography digital radio service.
She left the British Broadcasting Corporation in February 1996 over a disagreement with John Birt, then British Broadcasting Corporation Director General, over the decision to move British Broadcasting Corporation Radio News from Broadcasting House to Television Centre. Forgan was appointed the sixth chairman of The Scott Trust in 2003, the owner of the Guardian newspapers.
Between 2001 and 2008 Forgan was the Chair of the National Heritage Memorial Fund and Heritage Lottery Fund. In February 2009 Forgan became Chair of Arts Council England, the first woman to head the British arts funding organisation.
Appointed in the last year of a Labour Government, she was viewed with suspicion by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition.
In the October 2010 Government spending review, the Arts Council suffered a 29.6% funding cut, and was also ordered to halve its administrative costs, a severe blow to the organisation but a matter of supreme indifference to the general public.
She is also board member of the Conservatoire for Dance and Drama, Trustee of the Royal Anniversary Trust, a former Board Member of the British Film Institute, a Trustee of the Media Trust and of the Phoenix Trust, and Chair of the Churches Conservation Trust.