Sam Lister is the Director General, Strategy and Operations, at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. His responsibilities include: strategy, commercial and finance, communication, analysis, HR and organisational change, legal, major projects and the department’s transformation programme. He also leads on DCMS’s response to Covid-19 and building departmental resilience for crisis management.

Prior to this he was responsible for Industrial Strategy, Science & Innovation at the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, focusing on policies to boost productivity, support UK businesses to develop and exploit new technologies, and leading work on funding domestic and international research. He was also Director of Communication, Partnerships & Governance at BEIS and before that spent five years as Director of Communication at the Department of Health.

Before joining the Civil Service in 2011, Sam spent 12 years as a correspondent, news editor and health editor at The Times.