Colin Jackson: How did you get to be Head of Major Events for BBC Sport?

Dave Gordon: I wanted to work for the BBC when I was in university and I worked at the university radio station, and applied to be a graduate entrant for the BBC. There was only one course they ran for radio studio managers, and I had a first interview, and a second interview, and then I got a rejection slip after the second interview.

So I left university not knowing what I was going to do, and I started working for a Carnaby street boutique for a couple of months, just to earn some money. I was called by appointments at the BBC saying that somebody had dropped out and I had their place for a training position at the BBC.

Being rejected at first gave me a fantastic determination to do well and a grim determination to take all rejections that come life's way and say 'Well something will turn up, something will work out, hang on in there'.

I worked at the BBC as a radio studio manager, did a few years there, worked on news and sport programmes as sport is my passion. Radio was a fantastic training ground then that way, I learnt my journalism from the people I worked with. It was in the golden age of radio broadcasting when there were people like Desmond Lynam, Alan Parry, Jim Rosenthal, Chris Martin-Jenkins and Ian Robertson - a lot of the greats of radio broadcasting.

I learnt enormous amounts from them, but got to a stage I suppose six or seven years in when I'd become a senior producer. I'd done fairly big events, been to the Olympics and the Commonwealth Games and thought I'd have a try at TV.

CJ: What motivated you to want to work yourself back up to the top when you were already so successful in radio?

DG: I was very ambitious and self-determined, I really just wanted to prove myself. The BBC is a great media organisation and I was working where I'd really wanted to be. I loved my job and loved the challenge.

I can be really focused, and selfish, but sometimes you have to be, in whatever walk of life. If you're going to get to the top, you've got have a fairly ruthless streak about you, ruthless in the sense of being determined. I like to think I conduct myself the way I want to be treated myself so I try not to walk over everybody in the process - that's very important!

It's all too easy to say 'I've done everything why should I go on?', but you need challenges all the time. New technology comes up in the television world, there are new challenges, especially where you're working together with other areas of the BBC, not just in your own geographical area, but nationwide in the BBC.

CJ: It must be a huge job to produce something like the Olympic Games, how does the BBC get the broadcasting rights to show the Olympics?

DG: We negotiate those rights in partnership with other countries, and do it through the European Broadcasting Union. The idea is that we're in a better position to negotiate if you've got countries like Germany, France etc alongside you.

You have to look at aspects of value for money and what's going to work for you. We don't publicly disclose the figures we spend on rights, you have to assess the value of it to you in terms of how much you're going to spend on rights, how much the production is going to cost you and you balance that against the benefits to the licence fee payer, the viewers, the listeners, users of the website, and you reach something that works hopefully.

I find it really exciting to think we've got the 2012 London Olympics ahead of us. The Olympic Games in my own country - fantastic! When we got the decision, I was like an excited child!

CJ: For a two-week event like the Commonwealth Games, and other major events, how much preparation is needed?

DG: In theory, you start preparing for an event the moment you finish the previous incarnation of that event. In an ideal world, you finish one Olympics and then you start to think about the next one because you're trying to learn the lessons from the previous games. You try to apply changing circumstances to Beijing, changing technologies etc.

CJ: How difficult is Beijing in terms of language?

DG: We have visitors' cards printed with our names in English on one side, and our names in Chinese on the other. We had to email the version to check it. I think it has been quite difficult as language can be a problem with a very formal society like that in Beijing. I'm really excited as it's a challenge to be working in a part of the world I've never been to until now.

CJ: So the team that you assemble around you to help organise this, how big is that?

DG: You have a very good Executive Producer who works with you, looks after the logistics, someone who is a really seasoned TV professional who just knows how to make it work. I can draw up the schedules, try to get the most out of the output, form alliances and other areas, and if you've got somebody who is good like a Martin Webster who does it now, or Martin Hopkins who used to do it, it works.

You need a good Production Manager, excellent engineers, we've got people who have a world-wide reputation and when London was bidding for the Olympics, they're the people they go to because we do have some of the best talent. Talent isn't just people like yourselves in front of camera, it's the talent behind the camera, behind the microphone that needs to be assembled.

Everybody has a real passion for it and I think you build a tradition. We work on this basis for major events, we try and take 80% of the people we took to the last event, now that sounds conservative, it's not really. You take the core team who know how to do it, and you take another 20% who are having their first experience of it. You keep freshening up the team, but actually you use the heritage and experience you've acquired over the years, that's really important.

CJ: Are you where you want to be in the BBC - is there any other job you'd choose?

DG: No there isn't. I mean I had that chance a year ago, when the Director of Sport vacancy came up. I had the thrill of being Acting Director for four months, which was terrific, and I'd do that any other time, but I'm actually enjoying going out meeting people and working on programmes so there is no one other job in the BBC that I covet.

CJ: What are the highlights of your job?

DG: The highlights are coming to great sporting events and meeting great sportsmen and women - guys like yourself, Steve Cram, Michael Johnson, Brendan Foster. I'm trying not to leave anybody out, but I've met people like Steve Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent - it's very special.

It is spotting new talent and working with them, learning to nurture new talent and bring people on who've had a fantastic first career and help them to achieve what they want in their second career. It's helping to translate these great sporting events for the audiences back home, that's a real buzz. When your neighbours say 'What are you doing?', and you tell them and they turn a shade of green you know that you have a job to die for!

I always remember a few years back working at Wimbledon, and I knew I was controlling which matches people saw every afternoon. I could feel the pins being stuck in effigies of me when I got it wrong, but when I made the right decision it was great. There are lowlights, when you're working 15 hours a day, and you're tucking into your 16th meat pie in a row, because you can't be bothered to eat anything else, but that's the same in every walk of life.

CJ: What are the skills from your job that people are now picking up from you?

DG: You've just got to have a passion for what you're doing. Your answer to most questions has got to be 'yes' rather than 'no'. You've got to be an enabler. You've got to be positive. You've got to be organised, have common sense, know what's what, be able to get on with people, but you know, fundamentally, I think it's passion for what you're doing and to be able to communicate.