JO TYNDALL
Director, Digital Broadcasting Strategy - Ministry for Culture and Heritage

Jo Tyndall

Since June 2005, Jo Tyndall has been on an assignment as Director – Digital Broadcasting Strategy at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, where she has led the development and implementation of government’s policy for making the transition to free-to-air digital television. For the first year, this was as a secondment from NZ On Air, but is now a contract position.

Jo was Chief Executive of the broadcasting funding agency, NZ On Air, from January 1999 to September 2006, and from January 1997 to December 1998 Jo was Executive Director of SPADA.

For three years Jo was Executive Director of Project Blue Sky – a film and TV industry export group.  She set Project Blue Sky up from scratch, and worked on a number of initiatives (including a successful High Court Challenge in Australia, opening the way for access to the Australian television market for New Zealand programmes) to overcome the key roadblocks to the growth of the industry in New Zealand.

Between 1987 and 1991, Jo was posted with MFAT to Geneva and was one of New Zealand ’s team of negotiators in the WTO Uruguay Round.  Her main responsibility was for the negotiations on the new General Agreements on Trade in Services (GATS), which included the audio-visual sector.

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