Helen Boaden (born 1 March 1956) is a British former broadcasting executive who spent more than 30 years working for the BBC, including as Director of Radio between February 2013 and September 2016.

[1][2] Boaden is a Fellow of The Radio Academy,[3] and in May 2019 she joined the board of the UK Statistics Authority for a period of three years.

[6] Boaden began her career in 1978 as a care assistant with disturbed adolescents in the London Borough of Hackney.

Boaden received criticism following the 7 July terror attacks in London when she issued a memo instructing BBC staff not to refer to the perpetrators as terrorists, arguing that the term "can be a barrier rather than aid to understanding".

Writing in The Spectator, Michael Vestey suggested "it's almost as if the BBC is afraid of offending suicide bombers in the Muslim world".

[4] Boaden has won Sony Awards for a programme on AIDS in Africa, and bullying in Feltham Young Offenders Institution when at File on 4.

In February 2013, she was named as one of the 100 most powerful women in the United Kingdom by Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4.