theartsdesk's Chairman honoured by Royal Academy

Sir John Tusa, chairman of theartsdesk, former managing director of the BBC World Service and Barbican Centre, has been made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy today. Two non-artists a year are chosen by the Royal Academy of Arts in Piccadilly to honour for their distinction in their field. The other honoree is Joseph Rykwert, the art and architecture historian currently professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

Three new Royal Academicians have also been elected, painter Timothy Hyman, sculptor Phyllida Barlow and engraver and printmaker Anne Desmet. The celebrated Chinese artist Ai Weiwei and Danish experimentalist Per Kirkeby have been elected Honorary Academicians - an honour for artists not resident in Britain.

Sir John Tusa was born in Czechoslovakia in 1936. After studying History at Trinity College, Cambridge, he joined the BBC as a general trainee in 1960, and went on to work in current affairs on The World Tonight on Radio 4 and Twenty-Four Hours on BBC World Service. From 1979 until 1986 he worked on Newsnight and in 1982 started the pioneering history programme Timewatch on BBC Two. In 1986 Tusa became managing director of the BBC External Services, which he renamed BBC World Service in 1988. He set up BBC World Service Television in 1992.

He was managing director of the Corporation of London’s Barbican Centre from 1995 until 2007. In 1997 he was awarded the Freedom of the City of London, and in 1998 was conferred the Order of the White Rose of Finland, Knight First Class. Since 1998 he has been chairman of the board of the Wigmore Hall, London's leading chamber music venue, and was appointed chairman of the University of the Arts London in 2007. He is also chair of the Clore Leadership Programme which develops future arts leaders.

Sir John was knighted in The Queen’s Birthday Honours list in 2003. He became chairman and a director of theartsdesk last year.

• Find John Tusa's Engaged with the Arts: Writings from the Frontline on Amazon