Roy Head

Overview

Roy Head is the CEO of Development Media International. Roy has spent his career trying to push the limits of what mass media can achieve in post-conflict and low-income countries. He began as a BBC television producer, but then joined UN Peacekeeping to set up its first radio station (Cambodia, 1992-3) and largest TV operation (former-Yugoslavia, 1994-6). In 1997 he made a simultaneous approach to the BBC and WHO, arguing for a more professional approach to health campaigning. This led to the creation of the BBC World Service Trust, where Roy ran the Health Division, leading award-winning campaigns in 16 countries. By 2005, the BBC’s Trust had become one of the world’s leading development communications agencies. In 2005 Roy was awarded the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust ‘Visionaries’ Award and left the BBC to create DMI. His purpose was to bring a new scientific rigour to mass media campaigning: to mathematically model and then scientifically test how many lives mass media could actually save. His aim was to use this work as a springboard to save as many lives as possible. He has a Double-First from Cambridge (economics and politics), an MA from the Annenberg School of Communications and speaks four languages.