Her demeanour and hobbies, including playing the piano and riding, tend to betray her early career at Andersen Consulting, rather than reveal her as a battle-hardened media cynic. Any questions about her mettle will be answered in the coming weeks as she faces the challenge of protecting Five's position in the multi-channel TV world.
Scott joined Five from the BBC in June, following three months on gardening leave. She filled the role vacated by David Pullan, who left in April 2004 to become managing director of FHM Worldwide. Scott has maintained a lower profile than her predecessor, preferring to concentrate on devising a strategy to defend the channel rather than chase headlines.
She knows there is quite a job to do. With no full-time marketing director for more than a year, the channel's marketing efforts have, at best, appeared ad hoc and, at worst, invisible.
Scott hints that the old marketing strategy lacked coherence. 'It had been tempting to take one-off shows and market them rather than do signposting,' she says. Viewers picked up on individual programmes without developing any loyalty to the channel.
In its eight years, Five has undergone a gradual transformation from the cheap-and-cheerful image of its launch to something resembling a mainstream terrestrial channel. 'It's a reflection of its age that viewers don't know what Five is,' says Scott.
She lists the channel's attributes as 'smart and intelligent', 'fun', 'not afraid to show its emotion' and 'challenging', and she is about to begin articulating these in a campaign.
With advertisers demanding a younger, more upmarket audience, programme director Dan Chambers is turning away from cheap imports and derivative shows in favour of more substantial, if populist, programmes. Scott's first major campaign launches this week and, in a break from tradition, concentrates on a programme genre, rather than an individual programme.
Five has invested heavily in original content and its autumn schedule is skewed toward documentaries and factual programmes, which are not normally associated with the channel.
Programmes on the slate include Middle-aged Mummy's Boys, a documentary about grown men who still live with their parents; My Life as a Wolf Boy, following a man whose entire face and body is covered with thick hair; and Boudica's Treasures, an archaeology programme that attempts to locate the power-base of the woman who led the rebellion by the ancient Britons against the Romans.
Scott says other campaigns will promote new strands in the schedule.
Five has made the bold move of commissioning a comedy format, its first attempt at the genre, and is investing in original drama. The challenge for Scott is to promote the breadth and depth of Five's offering and rid the channel of its downmarket image.
One thing Scott won't be changing is the channel's identity, created by TBWA\London. It is three years since the lower-case five replaced the colour bar, which had been used since launch. She is, she says, happy with the work of Five's two agencies, TBWA and Vizeum.
Scott has the intellectual rigour and experience to achieve her goal of creating a more contemporary identity for Five, but a question mark hangs over the long-term strategy of the channel's owners. But she claims not to be worried about the lack of clear plans for the launch of a digital sister channel. The acquisition of United Business Media's share of the broadcaster by RTL earlier this year may clarify the issue.
For the moment, Scott can concentrate on the core Five brand. 'There is still reach and organic growth to be had,' she says. And growth is vital if Five is to compete against its expanding number of multi-channel rivals.
CAREER HISTORY 1985-1986 Graduate consultant, Andersen Consulting 1987-1992 Marketing manager, Telegraph Group 1992-1997 Marketing director, Financial Times 1997-2005 Controller of TV marketing, strategy and development, BBC 2005-present Marketing director, Five