New appointments to the ASA Council

06 March 2006

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) Chairman, Lord Borrie QC, has appointed two new members to serve on the ASA Council - the body that adjudicates on advertising complaints.

Elizabeth Fagan, Group Media Director for DSG International plc, will join the Council as an advertising industry member and Professor Gareth Jones, Chair of Christian Theology at Canterbury Christ Church University, joins as an independent member.

Ms Fagan and Professor Jones will adjudicate on both broadcast and non-broadcast complaints.  They start work in April, replacing current industry member David McNair and independent member Martyn Percy, both of whom are retiring from Council having served the maximum six years.

Elizabeth Fagan joined Dixons Group plc in 1996 as Group Advertising Director, from Sketchley Retail Ltd where she was Managing Director.  She became Marketing Director of Dixons chain in 1999 and a year later she was appointed Group Marketing Services Director.  In 2004 she was appointed as Managing Director of The Link/Genesis, Dixons B2C and
B2B Communications businesses.  She became Group Media Director earlier this year.

Gareth Jones joined Canterbury Christ Church University in 1999.  Having completed his doctorate at Cambridge University, he spent three years at Keble College, Oxford before moving to Birmingham University to teach systematic theology.  Prior to his current role, he worked as the theological consultant to the House of Bishops of the Church of England.  Professor Jones is the author of three books and is editor of The Blackwell Companion to Modern Theology.

Welcoming Professor Jones and Ms Fagan to their new roles, Lord Borrie said: "The contrasting knowledge and experience that Gareth and Elizabeth bring will be of enormous benefit to the ASA Council as it considers the wide variety of issues raised by advertising complaints.  I am delighted to welcome them to the ASA."