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Dee Ford doesn't usually "do" interviews, and has remained a bit of a media enigma over the past decade, flitting between her home in Leeds, Bauer Radio HQ in Manchester, and meetings with the advertising world in London.

However, having been with the same radio company for the past 14 years, few are better placed to explain the effects of the sale of Emap's radio assets to H Bauer on 29 January for £422m - a sale Ford fondly describes as "wunder-Bauer".

Having started her working life as a materials technician on a building site, Ford's current position, heading one of the UK's most profitable radio businesses for the past three years, may have initially seemed a far cry.

After a stint at Radio City in Liverpool, Ford joined Emap Radio as managing director of the Preston- based Rock FM, rose quickly to Yorkshire regional managing director, then to group managing director of Emap Performance, before taking up her current role managing the group's entire radio portfolio.

Bauer's vast portfolio is made up of the Big City Network - the collective term for its local heritage stations such as Key 103 in Manchester - Magic and Kiss and a series of magazine-based radio brands such as Smash Hits, Kerrang! and Heat.

Long haul
Ford's role since the Bauer acquisition has remained the same, and she continues to report to Paul Keenan, chief executive of Bauer Consumer Media. However, what has changed, she says, is the feel of the company, which now enjoys private ownership.

Ford explains: "The delightful thing about being owned privately  is that those false deadlines that form part of a calendar in public ownership are gone: we no longer have to think about turning a trick to deliver results in three months' time. Bauer is in it for the long haul, so we can now have a long-term view for the business."

However, many were surprised, even concerned, when Bauer acquired Emap's radio assets, since it only had a couple of small-time radio interests in Hamburg and Poland. The industry wondered how an essentially magazine-based company would run a large radio business, but Ford insists the move was "deliberate" and "strategic".

She says: "Bauer purposefully bought the radio business to invest further in radio. For Bauer, it's about spreading interests across different platforms. The company has bought into our strategy about radio output being platform-neutral."

Heinz Bauer and his family are practising a "hands-off" style of management, leaving Ford and her team with a large degree of freedom.

Ford explains: "We agree our strategy with our owner and then report back when we have delivered it. Bauer's culture is based on trusting local teams to deliver what they have set for themselves."

The immediate priorities for the business are a £10m investment in marketing Kiss and The Big City Network, and launching two national stations: the revamped Q Radio and the forthcoming Closer Radio. Ford wants to enjoy the same degree of success with Kiss as Bauer has enjoyed with Magic.

She also wants to drive more listeners to the regional stations, as they are the ones most in demand by advertisers.

Ford confirms that the same tradition of brand extensions from magazine to radio will continue under the new regime, describing the search for the gaps in the market as "a live organic process". A male radio brand is next on the shopping list.

Gaining ground
Ford believes the reason for radio advertising revenue enjoying its first rise this year (of 2.8%) since 2004, is because the industry is back on good ground after a period of consolidation throughout 2004-2005. She also admits that the radio industry didn't attend to the dawn of internet advertising as it should.

She says: "We feel re-energised. 4Digital is on the horizon and there has been a spurt of positive news lately." Although on the board of the 4Digital Group, Ford seems none the wiser about a precise start date, but expects an "autumn launch".

But other industry issues are bothering Ford more. She values consumers' needs above everything else and claims that the Department for Culture Media and Sport's Digital Radio Working Group lacks a consumer vision. "It took 30 years for 51% of listeners to move over to FM from AM," she explains. "We assume consumers will move wherever we want them to. But people tune into radio, not a platform."

Ford's name has been linked with several senior job vacancies in the past, but she is firmly sticking with Bauer for now, saying: "This is where I want to be as I have watched this business flourish."

So it seems H Bauer's "hands-off" approach is fitting, as Dee Ford is enjoying holding the reins more than ever before.

CV
2004 Group managing director, Bauer Radio (formerly Emap Radio)
2000 Group managing director, Emap Performance
1998 Managing director, Emap Radio
1996 Regional managing director for Yorkshire, Emap Radio
1994 Managing director, Rock FM
1992 Managing director, Lancashire/Cheshire and Yorkshire Life magazines
1990 Head of sales, Rock FM
1987 Senior sales executive, Radio City
1984 Sales executive, Messenger Newspaper Group