High flyer Rona Fairhead drops in to save the Beeb

Unassuming and understated, the woman who once sat quietly at Dame Marjorie Scardino’s side has rapidly eclipsed her mentor. Rona Fairhead, the most memorable of Scardino’s finance directors while at education group Pearson, went on to lead its Financial Times division and is now headline news herself as the Government’s preferred candidate to chair the BBC Trust.

If she found room to take on another job she has been linked to, chairing Barclays — tough given the BBC time commitment — Fairhead, 53, would make doubly sure of her arrival as a member of the Establishment.

It is instructive that friends championed Scardino for the BBC role, but she felt life was too short for trial by parliamentary select committee. Fairhead, by contrast, had her ambition sharpened after battling breast cancer. A regular on the cocktail party circuit — most recently spotted admiring the new season’s fashions at Marks & Spencer’s summer bash — she is dry-humoured, cool under pressure and conspiratorial with a wink and a purse of the lips. She has bided her time since leaving Pearson 18 months ago with a controversial £1 million pay-off after missing out on the chief executive’s role.

Industrial expertise from time spent at plane-maker Bombardier and chemicals giant ICI had some fans suggesting she should have taken control of Britain’s defence giant, BAE Systems, next. But political connections strengthened by a spell as non-executive director of Francis Maude’s Cabinet office have been put to use in another way.

It is worth pointing out that her appointment marks another win for women leaders, after Inga Beale took the helm at insurance market Lloyd’s, Fiona Woolf became the second female Lord Mayor of London and Charlotte Hogg and Minouche Shafik invaded the corridors of the Bank of England.

What is more striking is that after Lord Patten’s weak turn as chairman, the BBC has eschewed the grandee route, picking a strategist trained at management consultancy Bain and a numbers woman. It is a nod to the fact that the BBC must overhaul its governance, because a trust that regulates the organisation and also cheerleads for it is unsustainable. With charter renewal around the corner, it must also justify its funding like never before.

Fairhead, a Cumbrian-born mother-of-three whose husband Tom was a Tory councillor for Earls Court for many years, also has a global perspective, sitting on the board of banking giant HSBC — which she is expected to give up soon — plus drinks and of snacks firm PepsiCo.

She also holds a pilot’s licence. Now Fairhead is really flying high.