As first reported last month in Insurance Business (see article), Direct Line boss Paul Geddes is on the shortlist for a replacement for the broadcaster’s outgoing CEO Adam Crozier.

Crozier will step down from ITV at the end of the month, after seven years as CEO.

ITV has been using headhunters Spencer Stuart who have been tasked with expanding their search to include candidates from outside the media industry (that having been said, Geddes is a non-executive director at ITV owned Channel 4). Geddes’ experience as a director at a FTSE listed company is seen to be a considerable factor in his candidacy, given the paucity of listed chair experience held by current ITV chairman Sir Peter Bazalgette.

Geddes’s shortlist competitors are currently believed to be Andrew Griffith, CEO at Sky, and Rob Woodward, chief exec at Scotland’s STV. The Guardian also reports that Simon Pitts, MD of ITV’s digital strategy unit is still in the running after an unsuccessful shortlisting for Channel 4’s CEO.

Direct Line is one of the UK’s largest insurers. Its various brands hold a 14% share of the personal market, and a 17% share of the home insurance market as of December 2015, according to figures from its website.

Geddes joined Direct Line’s board in 2009 as an executive director. He was previously the CEO of the Royal Bank of Scotland’s mainland UK retail banking business. He joined that company in 2005 as a managing director for products and marketing.


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