Alex Connock TV/digital entrepreneur & academic. Founded TV/digital company Pretend in 2011. Visiting Fellow Oxford University's Reuters Institute. Previously co-founded with Bob Geldof

Bob Geldof

Robert Frederick Zenon "Bob" Geldof, KBE is an Irish singer, songwriter, author, occasional actor and political activist. He rose to prominence as the lead singer of the Irish rock band The Boomtown Rats in the late 1970s and early 1980s alongside the punk rock movement. The band had hits with his...

 TV/digital content company Ten Alps

Ten Alps

Ten Alps Plc is a UK-based media company, founded in 1999 by Alex Connock and Bob Geldof.The plc is now run by Peter Bertram and Nitil Patel...

 1999-2011.

Media: Founder of Pretend in 2011 in TV/digital content Manchester/London. Previously built Ten Alps from unfunded startup 1998 to large UK producer of factual and online TV. Agenda-setting TV journalism produced for BBC1,2,3,4, Channel 4, ITV, SKY, Channel 5, Discovery, RTE and international broadcasters. Also produced online and education video site Teachers TV, and radio for BBC 1,2,3,4,5 Live and World Service. Acquisitions included production companies Films of Record, Brook Lapping, Blakeway and Below the Radar. Many creative awards won within group.

Academia: Visiting Journalist Fellow at Reuter's Institute for the study of Journalism at Oxford University

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

, working on a study titled: 'Branded content: Can you believe it ?' about global growth in corporate-funded TV and its editorial credibility. Entrepreneur in Residence at INSEAD

INSEAD

INSEAD is an international graduate business school and research institution. It has campuses in Europe , Asia , and the Middle East , as well as a research center in Israel...

 (Fontainebleau), Governor of Manchester Metropolitan University 2008-11, and now director there of a new centre for digital industries project.
Visiting Professor of Media Business 2009-11 at Salford University. Manchester Grammar School

Manchester Grammar School

The Manchester Grammar School is the largest independent day school for boys in the UK . It is based in Manchester, England...

 1976-83. Scholarship to St John's College, Oxford

St John's College, Oxford

__FORCETOC__St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford, one of the larger Oxford colleges with approximately 390 undergraduates, 200 postgraduates and over 100 academic staff. It was founded by Sir Thomas White, a merchant, in 1555, whose heart is buried in the chapel of...

, studied Politics and Economics, graduated in 1987. Edited Isis

Isis magazine

The Isis Magazine was established at Oxford University in 1892 . Traditionally a rival to the student newspaper Cherwell, it was finally acquired by the latter's publishing house, OSPL, in the late 1990s...

, the Oxford University magazine in 1986, winning Guardian/NUS Award for Best Student Magazine. Master's in Journalism from Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 (New York) 1988 as Rotary International Scholar. MBA from INSEAD

INSEAD

INSEAD is an international graduate business school and research institution. It has campuses in Europe , Asia , and the Middle East , as well as a research center in Israel...

, 1993.

Previously worked: Granada TV, People Magazine (New York), the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 and Planet 24

Planet 24

Planet 24 was a television production company. It produced The Big Breakfast and The Word had an animation division Impossible TV. Bob Geldof and Tony Boland founded Planet Pictures which merged with 24 Hour Productions headed by Charlie Parsons and Waheed, later Lord Alli...

 as TV researcher, writer, producer, including programmes such as The Big Breakfast

The Big Breakfast

The Big Breakfast was a British light entertainment television show shown on Channel 4 and S4C each weekday morning from 28 September 1992 until 29 March 2002 during which period 2,482 shows were produced. The Big Breakfast was produced by Planet 24, the production company co-owned by former...

. From 1995-99 Managing Director of Planet 24 Radio, producing programmes for BBC Radio

BBC Radio

BBC Radio is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927. For a history of BBC radio prior to 1927 see British Broadcasting Company...

 1,2,3 and 5 and IRN. For Ten Alps and BBC Radio 5 Live, he co-created the Sony award-winning political radio programme Sunday Service.

Industry Roles: Chairman of the Royal Television Society

Royal Television Society

The Royal Television Society is a British-based educational charity for the discussion, and analysis of television in all its forms, past, present and future. It is the oldest television society in the world...

 (North West) and columnist for Television, the RTS Magazine. NESTA

NESTA

The National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts is an independent endowment in the United Kingdom established by an Act of Parliament in 1998....

 mentor to startup media companies 2009-11. Shortlisted as Entrepreneur of the Year in the AiM, Quoted Company and Ernst and Young (London region) awards total six times. Commentator on media.

Interests: Photography, piano playing.
Married to TV producer Sumi Connock, Creative Director at ITV Studios in Manchester. Member of the Groucho Club

Groucho Club

The Groucho Club is a well-known private social club located at Dean Street in Soho, London. Its members are mostly drawn from the media, entertainment, arts and fashion industries....

, Soho House

Soho House

Soho House , Matthew Boulton's home in Handsworth, Birmingham, England, is now a museum , celebrating his life, his partnership with James Watt and his membership of the Lunar Society of Birmingham. It was designed by Samuel Wyatt and work on the current building began in 1789...

, The Ivy Club

The Ivy Club

The Ivy Club is the oldest eating club at Princeton University. It was founded in 1879 with Arthur Hawley Scribner as its first head. The members of each class are selected through the bicker process, a series of ten screening interviews, which are followed by discussions amongst the members as...

. Lives in Cheshire.
References:

• Media Trends forecast 2011-20
• Royal Television Society Magazine
• NESTA Website
• Daily Telegraph
• Guardian

Notes:
External links:

• BAFTA speech on BBC in 2021 - 'BBC North and Global'. Also on Insider Media.
• Royal Television Society speech on future of TV
• Royal Television Society interview with Joe Godwin, Director of BBC Children's
• Manchester Business School
• Salford University appointment as Honorary Visiting Professor of Media Business
• Manchester Metropolitan University Business School speech
• Ten Alps Plc official website
• C21 TV interview
• Photography