Sky chief gets key role at No 10 under PM Johnson
Christopher Williams
Lucy Burton
BORIS JOHNSON has called on Sky’s long-standing finance chief, Andrew Griffith, to forge stronger ties between No10 and the business world, in one of the new Tory leader’s first appointments as he takes power.
Mr Griffith, who most recently held the title of Sky’s chief operating officer, is due to take up his office at Downing Street today as part of the new administration, bringing his two decades of experience with one of Britain’s most successful companies.
He told The Daily Telegraph: “The reality is Boris is very pro-business and on a personal level he likes spending time with business.
“This is not about my agenda. This is about whether I can bring experience to help deliver Boris’s agenda, which is a very exciting one.”
The 48-year-old played an informal role in Mr Johnson’s campaign, providing his Westminster townhouse as headquarters.
During his career at Sky, which he joined in investor relations from the investment bank Rothschild, Mr Griffith was responsible for managing the pay-tv giant’s relationship with the City.
He also oversaw major deals such as the £7bn takeover of Sky Italia and Sky Deutschland, and he was also closely involved in the sale of the company to Comcast last year for £30bn in an extraordinary head-to-head blind auction.
Mr Griffith was known at Sky for acting as a foil and enforcer for chief executive Jeremy Darroch, who paid tribute to his “fundamental role in many of our proudest collective achievements”.
His links to the Conservative party are also extensive. Mr Griffith twice unsuccessfully stood as a parliamentary candidate for the Corby constituency and in 2005 he co-authored the book Direct Democracy alongside figures such as Douglas Carswell, Daniel Hannan and Jeremy Hunt.
It proposed radical reforms and modernisation of major British institutions including the NHS, the electoral system and schools.
The appointment of an experienced City figure to the heart of government is designed to signal a shift from Theresa May’s frosty approach to big business. Mr Johnson has already toured the Square Mile to address concerns over his own “f--- business” comment.
Mr Griffith’s appointment as business adviser is likely to cause concern at BT, however. At Sky he campaigned for the former state monopoly to be broken up to encourage investment in full-fibre broadband.
During his campaign for the Tory leadership Mr Johnson pledged to deliver such an upgrade for all homes by 2025.
Leading Tory donor Crispin Odey, the founder of Odey Asset Management who backed Mr Johnson during his leadership bid, urged the City to view Mr Johnson’s election as “an opportunity not a nightmare”.
“The best thing about Boris is that he’s an enthusiast and he’s collegiate and he steals ideas from anybody, which is great,” said the hedge fund boss. “We just had a government that didn’t know what an idea looked like.”
Others were more circumspect about the incoming Prime Minister.
Jon Moulton, the former Conservative party donor and Brexit backer, said Mr Johnson “sometimes thinks he’s Winston Churchill and sometimes Donald Trump” adding “we must hope for the best”.