New Ofcom chairman: Nice work if you can get it

Ah the pressures of dealing with a communications industry in flux.

Next generation networks, internet bottlenecks, spectrum issues, mobile pricing, digital switchover, just some of the problems awaiting newly appointed Ofcom Chairman Dr Colette Bowe.

Yep - Colette. Showing my ignorance here but didn't occur to me that chairman goes for both sexes. I thought it was a typo on the Government press release - a late Friday mistake but no a quick bit of Googling reveals the following on that fountain of truth - www.thefreedictionary.com.

"USAGE: Chairman can seem inappropriate when applied to a woman, while chairwoman can be offensive. Chair and chairperson can be applied to either a man or a woman; chair is generally preferred to chairperson."

Anyway - whatever she is called Dr Bowe's salary shows little evidence of a glass ceiling (Couldn't track down an exact figure for her predecessor David Currie but he was on £133,000 in 2003 which will certainly have gone up but beyond £200,000? - hard to say)

"The Chairman's remuneration is £200,000 p.a. for up to three days a week"

So that means that some of the time she might not even do a three day week and still get paid £200,000. Nice work if you can get it, industry meltdown and global recession aside obviously.

See more here:
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/media/features/colapp