Criticised for her lack of editorial experience, Michelle Guthrie nonetheless comes to the ABC with a substantial News Corp background.
Currently Google's Singapore-based regional head of agency, she has been named as the Australian national broadcaster's new managing director. Her year in the current role completes five years with Google in Asia.
She is returning to Sydney, where she was born in 1965 and studied arts and law at university. Her career includes time as a media and technology lawyer in Sydney and Singapore, before joining News International as as a corporate counsel. A 13-year stint with News Corp companies includes time with Foxtel in Sydney, and replacing James Murdoch as chief executive of Star TV in Hong Kong.
Between this and her Google roles - initially as managing director of partner business solutions - she headed Providence Equity Partners in Hong Kong.
ABC chair Jim Spigelman describes Guthrie - the first woman to hold the role - as ideally credentialed to lead the public broadcaster in the digital era, "an exceptional media professional with strong content, operational and board experience within internationally-respected media companies".
Consistently under fire from News' national daily, The Australian - which asserted last week that the ABC should step back from predecessor Mark Scott's expansion of digital and online offerings because the private sector can provide this - the ABC presents a form of state-based competition (and balance) the Murdoch camp finds hard to stomach and uses its media outlets to oppose.
Yet you'd think they might be happy with Guthrie, with her 13 years in the Murdoch camp. Perhaps while publicly telling her what she should do, they quietly are.
Peter Coleman