David Kogan

Kogan was educated at Haverstock Comprehensive School in Camden, London; and at Balliol College, Oxford.^[3] He has described himself as "absolutely Jewish, but it's never been a predominant part of my existence".^[4]

From 1982 he was a producer at BBC Radio working on Today; at BBC Television working on Newsnight and Breakfast Time; and at BBC America.^[3] From 1988 he was managing editor and then global managing director at Reuters Television.^[3][5] From 1996 he was executive director at Granada Channels.^[6] In 1998 he co-founded media advisory company Reel Enterprises with Sara Munds, and was its Chief executive officer (CEO).^[3] In 2011, Reel was acquired by Wasserman Media Group, where Kogan and Munds went to work in media rights.^[7] In 2014 he and Munds left and set up Exile Enterprises.^[3] Kogan was executive director/CEO of Magnum Photos^[8] from 2015^[3][9] to 2019.^[10]

Kogan was the Premier League's chief media rights adviser from 1998 to 2015, and was described in The Irish Times as "a key architect of [the Premier League's] global financial success".^[11][12] Other media rights clients have included the English Football League, Premiership Rugby, the International Olympic Committee and the National Football League (NFL).^[3] He was awarded an OBE in the Queen's 2014 Birthday Honours for services to diplomacy, having been asked to provide advice on FCO Services funds.^[3][13][14] While at Magnum in 2018, prompted by allegations of sexual misconduct against two of its photographers, Kogan led the agency in creating a formal code of conduct for both its photographers and staff.^[15][16]

Kogan's first book was The Battle for the Labour Party, published with his uncle, Maurice Kogan, in 1981.^[17] The later Protest and Power: The Battle for the Labour Party (2019) is a 400-page book that builds on the earlier work, based on many interviews. William Davies described the latter work in The Guardian as a "meticulous review of four decades of intra-party struggles" up to February 2019, but one that offers "little sense of who and what really mattered".^[18]

In April 2020 Kogan became a director of LabourList, an independent news site for the Labour Party.^[19] He resigned as director in April 2025.

In May 2025, the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee endorsed Kogan's appointment as Chair of the Independent Football Regulator.^[20] This was despite concerns being raised on the committee that there may be a perceived conflict of interest, given Kogan's history of donations to the Labour Party.^[21] A majority of the committee's members were from the Labour Party, and Kogan had recently made a political donation of £7,625 to Treasury minister Emma Reynolds.^[22]

• The Battle for the Labour Party. 1981. With Maurice Kogan.
  • Second, updated edition. Fontana, 1982. ISBN 978-0006365129. Contains 2 additional chapters.
  • London: Bloomsbury Reader, 2018. ISBN 9781448217359.
• The Attack on Higher Education. London: Kogan Page, 1983. ISBN 9780850387551.
• Protest and Power: The Battle for the Labour Party. London: Bloomsbury Reader, 2019. ISBN 9781448217298.^[23][24]