Dame Elizabeth Anne Lucy Forgan,DBE (born 31 August 1944) is an English journalist, and radio and television executive.

Forgan was educated atBenenden School,Kent, andSt Hugh's College, Oxford, then an all-female college.

She initially worked on newspapers starting with theTeheran Journal as Arts Editor 1967–68, at theHampstead and Highgate Express (1969–74), and on London'sEvening Standard (1974–78, and later as a columnist 1997–98).

She was editor ofThe Guardian'swomen's pages from 1978 to 1982, aGuardian columnist during 1997 and 1998, becoming a non-executive director of theGuardian Media Group^[1] from 1998.

Forgan was a foundingcommissioning editor and then Director of Programmes at the UK'sChannel 4 from 1981 to 1990.^[2]

She joined the BBC in 1993 to become Managing Director, BBC Network Radio where she developed the format forBBC Radio Five Live and launched theDAB digital radio service.

She left the BBC in February 1996 over a disagreement withJohn Birt, then BBC Director General, over the decision to move BBC Radio News fromBroadcasting House toTelevision Centre.^[3]

Forgan was appointed the sixth chairman of TheScott Trust in 2003,^[4] the owner of the Guardian newspapers.

Between 2001 and 2008 Forgan was the Chair of theNational Heritage Memorial Fund andHeritage Lottery Fund.^[5]

She is also board member of theConservatoire for Dance and Drama,^[6] Trustee of theRoyal Anniversary Trust, a former Board Member of theBritish Film Institute, a Trustee of theMedia Trust and of thePhoenix Trust, and Chair of theChurches Conservation Trust.

In February 2009 Forgan became Chair ofArts Council England, the first woman to head the British arts funding organisation. Appointed in the last year of a Labour Government, she was viewed with suspicion by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition. In the October 2010 Government spending review, the Arts Council suffered a 29.6% funding cut, and was also ordered to halve its administrative costs.^[7]

Liz Forgan was promotedDame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to Radio Broadcasting in 2006 having previously been appointedOBE in 1998.

In 2014 she was elected anHonorary Fellow of the British Academy.^[8]

• Jill Tweedie for details of the National Portrait Gallery Group portrait of Forgan, Tweedie,Polly Toynbee andMary Stott (editors of Guardian's Women's Page) andPosy Simmonds.

• Heritage Lottery Fund
• Interview at the British Entertainment History Project