Dame Jennifer Gita "Jenny" Abramsky, Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire is chairman of the United Kingdom"s National Heritage Memorial Fund.
Background
She is the daughter of Professor Chimen Abramsky and the granddaughter of Rabbi Yehezkel Abramsky. Born to a Jewish family, she was the daughter of Miriam, a social worker and former communist who was in Brick Lane during Oswald Mosley"s fascist marches, and Chimen Abramsky, a professor of Jewish studies and rare book expert.
Education
She was educated at Holland Park School in London and the University of East Anglia, where she read English. She was educated at Holland Park Comprehensive and then completed her university education at East Anglia.
Career
The NHMF makes grants to preserve heritage of outstanding national importance. Until her retirement from the British Broadcasting Corporation Abramsky was its most senior woman employee. She was Director of Audio and Music.
In 1969, she joined the British Broadcasting Corporation as a programmes operations assistant, and in 1973 was appointed as a producer of The World at One.
She became the first woman editor of the agenda-setting Today programme, ran the first Gulf War Radio 4 News FM service, and went on to launch Britain"s first continuous news and sport radio station, Five Live, before launching the television channel British Broadcasting Corporation News 24. She launched the British Broadcasting Corporation"s online news website, news.bbc.co.uk.
She was named Director of British Broadcasting Corporation Radio in January 1999 and was subsequently promoted to the British Broadcasting Corporation"s Executive Board with overall responsibility for British Broadcasting Corporation Radios 1, 2, 3, 4, and Five Live and the British Broadcasting Corporation"s digital radio stations 1Xtra, British Broadcasting Corporation 7, 6 Music, Five Live Sports Extra and the Asian Network. The three British Broadcasting Corporation orchestras based in England.
And the Proms. In 2006 she became Director of Audio and Music – adding online services, audio on demand and podcasting to her remit of broadcast radio.
She had an annual programming budget of £236 million (about United States $475m) and a staff of 1,681. Under her leadership, by the first three months of 2007 the British Broadcasting Corporation"s radio stations had an audience share of 56.6 percent – compared with the 13.9 percent of listeners shared by all commercial radio broadcasters – and a reach of almost 33.5 million people – a record, according to Guardian newspaper (9 July 2007). The paper listed Abramsky as the 18th most powerful person in the United Kingdom"s media, though she had slipped from Number.
11 in the paper"s 2006 ranking.
lieutenant was announced in June 2008 that Abramsky was retiring from the British Broadcasting Corporation after 39 years of service, to be replaced by Tim Davie. She currently serves on the board of trustees for the United Kingdom"s largest youth drama festival, the Shakespeare Schools Festival and is a Fellow of The Radio Academy.