Past and present positions
He currently holds a number of positions including: President of the Film Distributors’ Association; Chair of Nord Anglia International School, Dublin; Life President, National Film & Television School; UNICEF Ambassador; Member of the Advisory Board of Accenture (Ireland); Adjunct Professor of Film Studies and Digital Humanities at University College Cork; Hon. Doctorate, Exeter University; Adjunct Professor, School of Media & Communications at RMIT University in Australia; Board Member of the Commonwealth of Learning, Patron, Dublin Bid World Summit on Media for Children 2020/2023 and International Ambassador, WWF since 2016. He is a member of the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) Parliamentary Network and a founding member of the ECIU (Energy Climate Intelligence Unit) since 2014.
Career
He spent thirty years as an independent producer of award-winning films including The Mission, The Killing Fields, Chariots of Fire, Midnight Express, Bugsy Malone and Local Hero. Together these films have won ten Oscars, 13 Golden Globes, 31 Baftas, nine Emmys, four David di Donatellos and the Palme D’Or at Cannes.
From 1986 to 1988, he was Chairman and CEO of Columbia Pictures. He returned to the UK to produce Memphis Belle, War of the Buttons and My Life So Far. From 1994 to 2004, he was Vice President and Chair of Trustees at the British Academy of Film & Television Arts (BAFTA) and was awarded a BAFTA Fellowship in 2006. He is also a Fellow of the British Film Institute.
Policy & Change
In 1998, he retired from film production to focus on his work in public policy as it related to education, and the environmental, creative and communications industries. He was appointed Chairman of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Draft Climate Change Bill in 2007, having performed the same role on the 2002 Communications Bill. He was Chairman of two Hansard Society Commission Reports on the relationship between Parliament and the Public and served as a non-executive director on a number of public companies.
From July 2002 to July 2009, he was President of UNICEF UK, engaging with issues as diverse as water security and child trafficking.
In 2019, Lord Puttnam chaired the Democracy and Digital Technologies Select Committee and, in 2021, became a member of the Environment and Climate Change Committee before retiring from the House of Lords in October of the same year.