Who is Richard Sharp? BBC chairman who helped Boris Johnson secure 800,000 loan

BBC chairman Richard Sharp is facing calls for an investigation into his appointment, amid claims he helped Boris Johnson secure a loan weeks before the then-prime minister recommended him for the role.

The former banker, who is in his 60s, worked for more than 30 years in the financial sector, including a 23-year stint at investment giant Goldman Sachs, where he was reportedly mentored by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

Before this, he worked in both commercial and investment banking for JP Morgan.

Mr Sharp, who read philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University, is also a former chairman and an emeritus trustee of the Royal Academy.

He reportedly acted as an informal adviser to Mr Sunak at the beginning of the pandemic and played a key role in the creation of the Governments 1.57 billion culture recovery fund.

He was also a member of the Bank of Englands Financial Policy Committee from 2013 until 2019, and sits on the board of the Centre for Policy Studies, the think tank founded by former prime minister Margaret Thatcher in the 1970s.