Elizabeth Murdoch

Elizabeth Murdoch   (businesswoman)
Born	22 August 1968 Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Nationality	British, US
Alma mater	Brearley School, Vassar College
Parents	Rupert Murdoch
Spouse	• Elkin Kwesi Pianim • Matthew Freud • Keith Tyson
Member of	WEF/Global Leaders for Tomorrow/1999, WEF/Young Global Leaders/2008
Daughter of media mogul and deep state operative Rupert Murdoch.

Not to be confused with her grandmother, Dame Elizabeth Murdoch

Elisabeth Murdoch is the daughter of newspaper magnate Rupert Murdoch. She is CEO of Shine Limited, a television production company with services in London and Manchester ( UK ).

She was selected a Global Leader for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum in 1999.

Private life

Elisabeth Murdoch was born on 22 August 1968 in Sydney. Her father is Rupert Murdoch, and her mother Anna Murdoch Mann (born 1944). She was named after her grandmother, Dame Elisabeth Murdoch. She completed her secondary education at the Brearley School in New York City and graduated with a bachelor's degree from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York.

Elisabeth Murdoch's first husband was fellow Vassar College graduate Elkin Kwesi Pianim, a partner in the New York Enterprise, which is the finance department of the Rothschild investment bank.

She later married public relations man Matthew Freud, the son of former MP (and UK/VIPaedophile) Sir Clement Freud, and great-grandson of Sigmund Freud. The couple were married on August 18, 2001, the ceremony taking place at Blenheim Palace. The couple divorced in 2014.

In 2017, Murdoch married artist Keith Tyson.

Career

Murdoch began her career as a manager of programme acquisitions at her father's FX Networks, a cable television unit based in Los Angeles. Operating as EP Communications, on 22 September 1994 Murdoch and her then-husband, Elkin Kwesi Pianim, purchased a pair of NBC-affiliate television stations, KSBW and KSBY, in California on a US$35 million loan secured by her father.

Murdoch moved with Pianim to the United Kingdom where Rupert Murdoch was running BSkyB. The early years of BSkyB saw a haemorrhage of cash from Murdoch's News Corporation funds. To help turn around the financial fortunes of the company, New Zealand television executive Sam Chisholm was brought on board to manage the day-to-day operations and build the subscriber base, with Elisabeth Murdoch as his second-in-command and de facto apprentice. By the time Chisholm left the company, BSkyB was the most profitable company in the United Kingdom. As managing director, Elisabeth oversaw BSkyB's £12 million sponsorship of the troubled Millennium Dome, to the relief of its Cabinet overseer, Peter Mandelson. However, she also faced criticism after brokering her father's failed £623.4 million bid for England's champion Manchester United team.

After quarrelling publicly with Chisholm, she ventured out on her own as a television and film producer in London. She advocated Sky setting up a film and production unit similar to BBC Films and Film4 Productions. However, due to lack of success, this unit closed down. She founded Shine Limited in March 2001, with 80 percent ownership retained by herself, 15 percent by Lord Alli, and five percent by BSkyB. BSkyB signed a deal guaranteeing to buy an agreed amount of Shine programming for two years.

In 2011, Shine was acquired by News Corporation in a controversial deal that raised questions about nepotism.

In February 2013, Murdoch was assessed as the fifth most powerful woman in the United Kingdom by Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4.

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