Sir Roly Keating

Head and shoulders photo of Roly Keating
Position
Chief Executive

Roly Keating has been Chief Executive and Accounting Officer, and a member of the British Library Board, since 12 September 2012.

Biographical information

In his tenure so far he has overseen a series of significant developments including the historic move to large-scale digital collecting through legal deposit; the incorporation into the Library of the Public Lending Right service; the Library’s successful and popular 800th anniversary commemorations of Magna Carta; the launch of the Knowledge Quarter, an innovative partnership of over 70 knowledge-based organisations near the Library’s London HQ; the creation of a national network of Business and IP Centres in major regional libraries; and the launch in 2015 of Living Knowledge, which sets out an ambitious vision and strategy for the Library’s growth and development towards its fiftieth anniversary in 2023.

Roly joined the Library after a long and successful career as a programme maker and broadcasting executive at the BBC, where he played key roles in the launch of UKTV, as its first Head of Programming, and BBC Four, as its launch Controller in 2002, before moving on to become Controller of BBC Two and Director of Archive Content, with editorial oversight of the BBC's online services including BBC iPlayer.

Roly is a member of the board of Channel 4 and a trustee of the Clore Leadership Programme. He chairs the Knowledge Quarter board and the Conference of European National Librarians. Roly holds honorary doctorates from the Universities of Lincoln, Warwick and York.

Chief Executive role

The Chief Executive delegates authority to the Chief Librarian and Chief Operating Officer, and maintains direct oversight of corporate affairs and marketing, development and fundraising, governance, and strategy development. He is the Library's Accounting Officer, personally responsible to Parliament for the Library's use of public funds, for ensuring propriety and regularity, and to the Board for the day-to-day operations and management of the Library.

Current salary band: £155,000 to £160,000 per annum