What is your job title?
Director of television.
What does your job involve?
Overseeing the creative output of the etv Media Group, leading brainstorms, rubbing my chin and saying "what about if we ..." a lot.
What qualifications and experience do you need?
A strong singing voice, a love for creating video, just enough "nerdery" to understand how video can get to people whatever screen they're watching, and the experience to know what might work and what won't.
How do you spend a typical day?
I spend the first 30 minutes reading the 15 newsletters I get, all of which contain tiny useful fragments. That might be followed by an agency meeting, where we'll present to a group of planners - all under 25 - who neither understand nor like digital media, but quite enjoy the chocolate biscuits. Then I'll be given a brief by one of our clients: could we come up with an idea for a web channel that involves building an online community targeted at extreme sports fanatics and urban free runners, around a car brand exclusively driven by women over 60? The rest of the day will be taken up with broadcaster meetings, trying to come up with a viable TV format involving Rolf Harris, endangered species and possibly the Cayman Islands.
What's the best thing about your job?
The sheer variety and the real delight of working with people who mostly have better ideas than me.
What is it like to work at etv?
If Carlsberg made offices ... (only with slightly lumpy office furniture and more shouting).
What keeps you awake at night?
Increasingly, my own snoring.
Who helped you get where you are?
Peter Bazalgette, the then chief executive of independent producer Bazal, who gave me my first job in the UK with the immortal words: "We're about to be taken over by a Dutch company called Endemol. I wonder if you wouldn't mind seeing if they have any interesting formats?"
Who do you aspire to be like?
Triple Beijing Olympic cycling gold medallist Chris Hoy, of whom a rival coach said: "He must have swallowed a motorbike." Being that good takes training, commitment and bloody mindedness, but it also involves a little bit of magic.