A former director of strategy at the BBC and ITV, Fairbairn, 54, currently holds a number of non-executive positions. These include with global outsourcer Capita, small cap manufacturer Vitec, Lloyds Banking Group, the Competition and Markets Authority and the UK Statistics Authority.
Her career has spanned strategy, economics, policy making, management consultancy and journalism. She plans to step down from all her current non-executive directorships when she takes up her role at the CBI, apart from remaining a trustee of the charity Marie Curie.
The recruitment process was led by CBI president Sir Mike Rake and conducted by executive search firm Odgers Berndtson. Fairbairn was selected by a committee of the CBI Board from a long list of 46 candidates and a final shortlist of six before being endorsed by the CBI's Chairmen's Committee.
She will work with CBI president-designate Paul Drechsler in ensuring the interests of British businesses of all sizes across the UK are represented in Whitehall, Brussels and internationally.
Fairbairn said: "The debate around Britain's relationship with the European Union and the productivity challenge facing our economy will be two of the defining issues of the next few years, and I greatly look forward to representing the voice of British businesses of all sizes on these questions and many others."
"Now perhaps more than ever, thriving British companies hold the key to the future prosperity of our country."
Carolyn began her career as an economist at the World Bank, before joining the Economist magazine as a journalist and then spending six years as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company
She was a member of Number 10's Policy Unit, advising on health and social services (1995-1997). She joined the BBC in 1997 and was responsible for strategic planning for its commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, before going on to lead the BBC's digital growth strategy, including the launch of Freeview.
In 2006, Fairbairn became a partner at McKinsey & Company where she was one of the leaders of its UK media practice and went on to become director of group development and strategy at ITV (2007-2010). Between 2008 and 2011, she was a non-executive director of the Financial Services Authority following the collapse of Northern Rock and was involved in overhauling its regulatory processes and restructuring it into two new regulators, the Prudential Regulation Authority and Financial Conduct Authority.
She read Economics at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, graduating with a double first; holds an MA in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from INSEAD.
