The RTÉ Executive Board, despite its name, was not a board of directors, but rather was a committee composed of the senior management of the Irish public service broadcaster, Raidió Teilifís Éireann, responsible for the day-to-day running of the broadcaster.

The executive board reported to the RTÉ Board through the director general. It was disbanded by the newly appointed Director General Kevin Bakhurst on his first day following the RTÉ secret payment scandal, and replaced by a "temporary interim leadership team".

Composition
The executive board was chaired by the Director General of RTÉ. 

The remainder of the committee included managing directors of television, radio, news and current affairs, and heads of content, channels and marketing, corporate development, commercial, legal and other functions, the chief digital officer, the chief technology officer, the chief financial officer.

The director general is appointed by the RTÉ Board, with the consent of the government and the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, while the other board members were appointed by the director general.

The executive was disbanded following the RTÉ secret payment scandal and replaced by a "temporary interim leadership team to continue running the organisation".

A new executive board was put in place in October 2017. The new board dropped the Director of TV and the Director of Radio, replacing them with the Director of Content and the Director of Audience, Channels and Marketing. Frances Abeton left the role of Director of Operations and Production Services at the end of 2018. 

In November 2018 Willie O'Reilly left the executive board to take up the position of chairman of iRadio, Geraldine O'Leary replaced him as commercial director; she initially did not sit on the executive board. In 2019 Rory Coveney became Director of Strategy and was appointed to the board, O'Leary was also appointed to the board at this time. Paula Mullooly then joined the Executive board as Legal Director. In 2020 Breda O'Keeffe left RTÉ "under a voluntary restructuring programme" and left her position as CFO and she was replaced by Richard Collins.

On 21 June 2022, Jon Williams announced his resignation as Managing Director of RTÉ News and Current Affairs and stepped down at the end of July. He was replaced by Deirdre McCarthy on an interim basis, before taking up the position permanently on 19 December 2022.

It was announced on 18 April 2023 that Kevin Bakhurst, former Deputy Director General and Managing Director of News and Current Affairs was appointed Director General and took the position in July 2023, returning to the broadcaster after a period of 7 years. 

Adrian Lynch, Director of Channels & Marketing, was appointed to the position of Deputy Director General in June 2023; he also assumed the role of interim Director General following the suspension and later resignation of Dee Forbes, and prior to the arrival of Bakhurst in July 2023.  

On 7 July 2023, in the wake of the RTÉ secret payment scandal, Director of Strategy Rory Coveney resigned from his position with immediate effect following a meeting with the incoming Director General Kevin Bakhurst.

The final members of the executive board were:

Temporary interim leadership team

Controversies

Mission to Prey 
Following RTÉ's defamation of Father Kevin Reynolds in its "Mission to Prey" episode of Prime Time, RTÉ announced that Ed Mulhall, MD News, had "retired" on 3 April 2012.

Presenter pay and other matters 

In June 2023, RTÉ admitted that it paid its top presenter Ryan Tubridy €345,000 more than publicly declared between 2017 and 2022. Dee Forbes was suspended as Director General a day prior to the controversy, and ultimately resigned with immediate effect on 26 June.
A statement from the interim Director General claimed that only Forbes had a complete picture, although someone prepared all the materials, advised her and enacted the actions to engage and pay Tubridy.

References

Executive Board