Ben Roberts

Ben Roberts, 47, is the chief executive of the British Film Institute (BFI), the UK’s charitable organisation promoting film and TV. After studying English at the University of Leeds, he moved into the film sector, eventually working his way up to become the head of the BFI’s Film Fund before taking the top job.

You started your current role just before the first lockdown. How was that?

I’d been at the BFI since 2012 so I knew the organisation well. When I started this job, I was raring to go. I love the organisation, but it’s been around for 88 years or so; I wanted to shake things up a little bit. Three weeks in, we went into lockdown. While the pandemic’s been awful, it created this dynamism in the organisation. One of the first things that happened was that Flare pivoted entirely online. That was an early indicator of how we were going