Roly Keating

Sir Roland Francis Kester Keating (born 5 August 1961) is Chief Executive of the British Library.

Keating was born on 5 August 1961 to Donald Norman Keating and Betty Katharine Keating (née Wells).

He was educated at Westminster School, an independent school for boys in London, and then read classics at Balliol College, Oxford.

Keating joined the BBC in 1983.

In 1989, Keating married Caroline Russell.

Together they have three children; one son and two daughters.

In an interview with Jonathan Moules of the Financial Times he exclaimed a "degree of upset, of anger” over the most serious crisis the Library had encountered in decades. Having not paid the £590k ransom to the ransomware group, Rhysida, the Library first paid £250k to the NCC group in order to provide an initial response to the attack with its unallocated reserves now being applied for its recovery. The cost is estimated to be between £6-7mn.

Writing on the British Library blog in December 2023, Keating said '...Although this kind of attack was something we had prepared for and rehearsed, and had taken steps to guard against, it was no less of a shock when it happened.'

By January 2024 the latest update stated '...At the time the hackers hit we were embarking on a significant round of fresh investment in our core technology infrastructure, as part of the Knowledge Matters strategy we launched last May.'

it was described by one reader to the Guardian as a '22-carat' disaster.

Speaking to the New Yorker, writer for the London Review of Books, Inigo Thomas said “It’s like a sort of institutional stroke,"

He was a producer and director for the Arts and Music department, making programmes for Omnibus, Bookmark (1992–97) and Arena.

He was a producer and later became editor of The Late Show.

In 1997, he became head of programming for UKTV, partly owned by the BBC.

In 1999, he became the BBC Controller of Digital Channels.

In 2000, he also took on the responsibility of Controller of Arts Commissioning.

He became the Controller of digital television station BBC Four in December 2001, masterminding its launch on 2 March 2002.

In 2003, he was also joint leader of the BBC's Charter Review project for six months.

He became the channel controller for BBC Two in June 2004, a position he held until 2008.

His decision to screen Jerry Springer: The Opera on 8 January 2005 forced him to go into hiding, and he was given security protection.

Keating was previously Director of Archive Content for the BBC.

He was appointed temporary controller of BBC One following Peter Fincham's resignation on 5 October 2007.

While Controller, he said that he wanted to see BBC Two be the first mainstream British TV channel to be available on broadband.

He took up his post in September 2012.

He was announced as chief executive designate of the British Library in May 2012, to succeed Dame Lynne Brindley.

As of 2015, Keating was paid a salary of between £155,000 and £159,999 by the British Library, making him one of the 328 most highly paid people in the British public sector at that time.

In February 2023, the Library had proposed a £500m community expansion, which would incorporate new galleries, event spaces, a community garden and the Alan Turing Institute of data science.

Keating was knighted in the 2023 New Year Honours for services to literature.