Harri spent 18 years as a journalist at the BBC. From 2008 to 2012 he was director of external affairs for Mayor of LondonBoris Johnson.[1] He worked at News International from 2012 to 2015, Liberty Global from 2016 to 2017, Hanover Communications from 2018 to 2020,[2] and Hawthorn Advisors from 2020 to 2022.
In May 2021, Harri joined GB News as a presenter; he was suspended and resigned in July 2021 after he took the knee on air. In February 2022, Harri was appointed Downing Street Director of Communications by Prime Minister Johnson, following the resignation of Jack Doyle, and left the post in September 2022.
He started his career in Welsh-language radio before moving into network radio and television. He remained a regular contributor on the S4C news programme Newyddion (“News”) as well as on a number of historical documentaries for S4C. He later presented a number of BBC Wales' main election programmes.[5]
In May 2021, it was announced that Harri would be joining GB News as co-host of a weekly news and discussion programme.[12] On 13 July 2021, Harri took the knee on GB News to show support for the England football team's kneeling for anti-racism; following backlash from viewers, GB News suspended him indefinitely for failing to maintain the editorial standards expected by the network.[13][14] Shortly afterwards, he resigned from GB News,[15] having written in The Sunday Times that the channel was "becoming an absurd parody" that was replicating cancel culture on the far right.[16][17]
In May 2008, he was appointed communications director for Mayor of LondonBoris Johnson's administration at London City Hall.[1] Harri joined News UK in May 2012 as a director of communications and corporate affairs, but left in December 2015, remarking that he was leaving with the "job done" after the fallout over phone hacking at the company.[18]
He then joined Virgin Media owner Liberty Global in February 2016 as their managing director of external communications.[19][20] He left the role in December 2017.
In May 2018, Harri took a part-time role with London PR firm Hanover Communications as a vice president,[2] for GQ magazine as a contributing political editor,[21] and also for Hydro Industries, a water treatment company based in Llanelli where he is a director.[22][23]
Brexit/Boris Johnson
Harri is a critic of Brexit.[24][25] After Johnson likened Prime Minister Theresa May's Chequers Brexit agreement to a "suicide vest" around the British constitution in September 2018, Harri criticised Johnson for "[joking] about suicide vests" and being "sexually incontinent", saying he was "digging his political grave" with his comments.[26] He also said Johnson had become "more tribal, and tribal within the tribe, so that he would now be—if he were to become leader—a hugely divisive figure".[26]
Harri was a board director of Hawthorn Advisors, a communications consultancy based in London and co-founded by Conservative Party co-chair Ben Elliot in 2013.[27][28] Hawthorn advised and lobbied the government on behalf of Huawei, a firm with close ties to the Chinese government that has been accused of spying on 5G networks in the UK and other Western nations.[29][30] Harri personally met with top executives from Huawei, including the company's vice-president, in 2020.
Harri left his Director of Communications post on 6 September 2022, the same day that Johnson resigned as Prime Minister.[31][32]
Family and personal life
Harri grew up in Rhondda Cynon Taf. He married his wife, Shireen, in 2000 and has three children.[33] In 2005, Harri published an advertisement in the Western Mail seeking a Welsh-speaking nanny for their two children while he worked for the BBC in New York City, in which he argued for the importance of the language in bringing up his children.[34] Outside work he says he enjoys rowing, sailing, fishing and cooking.[4]
Harri is a non-executive board member of the Hay Festival.[35] He was previously a trustee for UK-based cultural non-governmental organisation Visiting Arts.[36] Harri is trained and serves as a volunteer crew member on the River Thames for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.[37] He holds an honorary doctorate from the University of South Wales.[3]
^"S4C Chair thanks Guto Harri for his contribution". S4C. 2018. Guto Harri was a member of the Authority from 9 July 2014 and his term would have run until 8 July 2020. His last meeting will be 27 Sept 2018.
^Harri, Guto (18 July 2021). "They claim to believe in free speech, but not when I took the knee". The Sunday Times. ISSN0140-0460. Retrieved 17 August 2021. I joined, part-time but with an ongoing commitment, because I liked and trusted those in charge and supported the broad vision. But the channel is rapidly becoming an absurd parody of what it proclaimed to be. Rather than defending free speech and confronting cancel culture, it has set out to replicate it on the far right.
