Dawn Airey

Airey was born in Preston, Lancashire. She was educated at Girton College, Cambridge, where she studied geography.

Airey began her career as a management trainee at Central Independent Television in 1985. In 1989 she was promoted to the position of Director of Programme Planning and was appointed to the Central broadcasting board. When the ITV Network Centre was established in 1993, she moved to London to become the combined network's first Controller of Children's and Daytime Programmes.

In 1994, she was appointed Controller of Arts and Entertainment at Channel 4, where it was reported that her forthright manner had earned her the soubriquets "Scary Airey" and "Zulu Dawn" and her commitment to popularism was deemed by one colleague as "vulgar".

Airey joined Channel 5 in 1996, the year ahead of its launch, as the first director of programmes. It was during her tenure that she agreed with an interviewer's description of the channel's core strengths as "films, football and f***ing" but added that it was about much more. She was subsequently appointed as chief executive of the channel in 2000.

In 2002, amid rumours that ITV plc was reportedly pursuing her to become its chief executive., Airey surprised the television industry by instead accepting a position at the satellite broadcaster, BSkyB. overseeing all non-sports channels, their programming and all advertising sales. In 2006, she became Sky's managing director of Channels and Services with added responsibility for third party channels, joint ventures and networked media.

Airey departed BSkyB to head up an independent production business backed by private investors however she was only with the company for a total of eight days before it was announced that the venture did not have sufficient cash to continue trading. Soon after, in May 2007, she was reunited with Michael Grade, joining ITV plc as Director of Global Content, running the broadcaster's production and global sales division.

But within a matter of months she had again been poached by Channel 5 to become chairman and CEO, with a remit to increase profitability and audience share. This she did. RTL's decision to exit UK broadcasting and sell the company to Richard Desmond's Northern & Shell saw her elevated to the role of President of RTL-owned CLT-UFA., where she served between 2010 and 2013.

In August 2013, she joined Yahoo! as senior vice-president of Yahoo EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa). She was in the post until September 2015.

Airey was chief executive officer (CEO) of Getty Images photo agency from October 2015 to 31 December 2018, at which time she became a non-executive director member of its board.

In March 2023 Airey was appointed Chancellor of Edge Hill University.

In 2026, it was announced that Airey would become chair of Arts Council England from 1 August. The position is a part-time role for two days per week and is for an initial period of four years.

Airey lives with her civil partner Jacqueline Lawrence (the founder and chairwoman of The Elma Trust, a non-profit organisation) in West London and Oxford. The couple have two daughters.

She describes herself as a monarchist and a supporter of “the modern royal family”, singling out the work ethic and "phenomenal" dedication to the arts of Prince Edward, Duke of Edinburgh, royal patron of the National Youth Theatre, of which Airey is chair. Her views stand in contrast to her position of two decades ago when she told The Guardian that the concept of the monarchy had become “anachronistic”.