Charles Mark Gurassa (born 15 February 1956) is a British businessman and chair of the

Guardian Media Group Guardian Media Group plc (GMG) is a British-based mass media company owning various media operations including ''The Guardian'', and formerly ''The Observer''. The group is wholly owned by the Scott Trust Limited, which exists to secure the fin ...

. He is a former chairman of the television station,

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

, and succeeded Lord Burns in January 2016. Gurassa graduated from the

University of York The University of York (abbreviated as or ''York'' for Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a public Collegiate university, collegiate research university in York, England. Established in 1963, the university has expanded to more than thir ...

with a bachelor's degree in economics and earned an MBA from the International Management Centre in Buckingham. He began his career in 1978 as a trainee in

Thomas Cook Thomas Cook (22 November 1808 – 18 July 1892) was the founder of the travel agency Thomas Cook & Son. He was born into a poor family in Derbyshire and left school at the age of ten to start work as a gardener's boy. He served an appren ...

and progressed to become the general manager of retail by the time he left the company in 1989. During the following decade, he worked at

British Airways British Airways plc (BA) is the flag carrier of the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in London, England, near its main Airline hub, hub at Heathrow Airport. The airline is the second largest UK-based carrier, based on fleet size and pass ...

, leading the sales team and as a director of passenger and cargo businesses. Gurassa was CEO of

Thomson Travel Group Thomson Travel Group plc was a business formed by the Thomson Corporation of Canada, when it was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1998. It was acquired by TUI AG, Preussag AG, an industrial and transport conglomerate, in 2000. The group ...

from December 1999 to May 2003. He served as a non-executive director of Merlin Entertainment until November 2019 when he stepped down as part of an acquisition. He was an independent non-executive director of

easyJet EasyJet plc (styled as easyJet) is a British multinational low-cost airline group headquartered at London Luton Airport. It operates domestic and international scheduled services on 927 routes in more than 34 countries via its affiliate airlin ...

from 2011-2020. In July 2020,

Oxfam Oxfam is a British-founded confederation of 21 independent non-governmental organizations (NGOs), focusing on the alleviation of global poverty, founded in 1942 and led by Oxfam International. It began as the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief ...

announced that they had elected him to succeed Caroline Thomson as its chair in October 2020."Introducing our next Chair, Charles Gurassa", Angela Cluff, email to Friends of Oxfam, 22 July 2020 Gurassa has previously chaired the boards of

Virgin Mobile Virgin Mobile is a wireless communications brand used by seven independent brand-licensees worldwide. Virgin Mobile branded wireless communications services are available in Ireland, Canada, Colombia, Chile, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emi ...

and

Lovefilm LoveFilm was a United Kingdom–based provider of DVD-by-mail and streaming video on demand in the United Kingdom, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Germany. Acquired by Amazon.com in 2011, the service had reached 2 million subscribers. It claimed o ...

and was a board member of the

National Trust The National Trust () is a heritage and nature conservation charity and membership organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Trust was founded in 1895 by Octavia Hill, Sir Robert Hunter and Hardwicke Rawnsley to "promote the ...

and

Whitbread Whitbread is a British multinational hotel and restaurant company headquartered in Houghton Regis, England. The business was founded as a brewery in 1742 by Samuel Whitbread in partnership with Godfrey and Thomas Shewell, with premises in L ...

. As of 2022, he is on the board of British Airways and is chairman of the Migration Museum in London and the tour operator Great Rail Journeys.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gurassa, Charles Mark 1956 births British chief executives British corporate directors Living people Chairmen of Channel 4 Alumni of the University of York