The Chief Minister, the Hon Fabian Picardo KC MP, has appointed well-known broadcaster and highly respected journalist Alice Mascarenhas MBE to become the next Chair of the Gibraltar Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) Board. The appointment is for a three-year period.

Throughout her life, Alice Mascarenhas has been linked to GBC and is able to trace her history with the National Broadcaster back to its early days at Wellington Front. She becomes the first woman Chair of the GBC Board in its over 60 years of existence and the first to have a track record of having worked as a member of staff in previous years.

Alice first joined Radio Gibraltar as a Presenter in 1977 and left in 1991 as the station’s Head of Community Affairs, having also worked extensively in the GBC Newsroom both presenting and co-producing such programmes as ‘Gibraltar’s Political Development’ and ‘We Served’.

Opting to work in theatre for a time, Alice returned to GBC as a Consultant Broadcaster to head the GBC coverage of the 1995 Sunshine Games. In 1997, she joined The Gibraltar Chronicle as its Features Editor, retiring 22 years later as the newspaper’s first woman Deputy Editor.

Alice is well known for her “Alice’s Table” column series in the newspaper, which is also the subject of six compilation volumes. Until last year, she was a Radio Gibraltar contributor with her popular weekly musicals series “Centre Stage”, which was on air for 27 years.

The Chief Minister, the Hon Fabian Picardo KC MP, said: “I am delighted that Alice has accepted my invitation to take on this challenging role at a challenging time for broadcasting across the globe. Her experience in broadcasting will drive a sure course for broadcasting policy over the next three years. I look forward to working with her in shaping the future of local broadcasting. Alice is respected by fellow broadcasters and journalists alike and, in the wider community, as a person of rigorous integrity. I am therefore sure that this appointment will be as well received within the Corporation as it will be in the community as a whole.

“I take this opportunity to thank the members of our community who have served on the GBC Board over the last three years and who have also contributed significantly, in their own time, to uphold broadcasting standards.”

The new Board of GBC will be announced shortly.

The Chief Minister consulted the Leader of the Opposition before making the appointment.