July 2001: Following spells at Coca-Coca and Sega, Jim Hytner had joined BSkyB, becoming its marketing director - and in 1998, he'd moved from Sky to Channel 5, becoming the director of marketing and new business. In July 2001, he announces that he's moving on again to become ITV's marketing and commercial director, replacing John Hardie. It confirms a belief that Hytner is one of the brightest rising stars in the television industry.
June 2004: So Hytner surprises everyone when he reveals that he's leaving ITV to become the marketing and communications director at Barclays. The ITV job had been a high-profile one but the Barclays job is considered one of the biggest in the business.
August 2007: Hytner's sojourn outside the media-owner fold lasts three years - and again he confounds expectations when he announces he's to become the commercial director of Top Up TV. The company, which offers additional subscription channels (for instance, MTV and Disney) to Freeview customers, is a peripheral player in the pay-TV market - but he is reunited with the Top Up TV chairman, David Chance, with whom he worked at BSkyB.
August 2009: He announces he is joining Universal McCann as its EMEA president, reporting to Matt Seiler, its global chief executive, and Graham Duff, a former ITV colleague, now the EMEA president of Interpublic's media holding group, Mediabrands.
March 2011: With morale at UM low, it's a tough challenge. But, with Duff having moved on, Hytner becomes more influential in revamping the network. Now Mediabrands restructures its global operations into a "cluster" structure and hands more regional responsibility to Hytner. After the changes, he is to become the president of the G14 cluster, with responsibility for the 14 most strategically important markets outside the US.
Fast forward: January 2013 Now, in the wake of a review process led by the strategic consultant Duff, News Corp announces that it is to create Sky Europe, a new structure housing all of the group's pay-TV interests across the region, including BSkyB in the UK - and it reveals that it has secured the services of Hytner as its marketing and commercial director. His first coup is to ink a record-breaking corporate partnership deal with ... Barclays.