In that role she was responsible for BBC Worldwide's television channels, which operate in more than 100 countries, and the development and roll out of the commercial global iPlayer.

"[1] She was the first female director of the BBC, and oversaw the launch of numerous shows, including Strictly Come Dancing, Miranda, and the reinvented Doctor Who franchise.

[5] She then studied philosophy, politics and economics at St Anne's College, Oxford, where she was in a band with future Prime Minister Tony Blair.

She became a producer of Panorama in 1986, and co-authored The Disappeared: Voices from a Secret War with the BBC's diplomatic editor John Simpson about the actions of Argentina's military government during the same year.

One of her most successful episodes was "Death of the Iceman", about a body retrieved from a glacier which turned out to be the oldest frozen mummy ever to be found.

[2] Awards she won during this period included the 1991 News and Documentary Emmy for her role as Executive Producer of the film "Suicide Mission to Chernobyl" which also aired on the WGBH program Nova in the United States.

[2] Under her leadership, the department expanded the range and ambition of its programming, winning awards for series such as Walking with Dinosaurs, The Human Body and Meet The Ancestors and business formats such as Blood on the Carpet, Back to the Floor and the medical format Trust Me, I'm a Doctor.

The science department also pioneered content rich web sites and was one of the first areas to use email inside the BBC.

She introduced a new editorial direction under the slogan "Life Unscripted" which included reality-drama and interior design shows, some of them based on popular British formats.

[11] During Bennett's tenure, BBC television was responsible for natural history landmarks, such as Life, worldwide entertainment hits, including Strictly Come Dancing, The Apprentice and Top Gear; new comedy formats, such as Outnumbered and Gavin & Stacey.

Dramas ranged from period classics like Cranford to contemporary pieces such as Criminal Justice and Occupation, from science fiction in the shape of Torchwood and Doctor Who to detective series such as Life on Mars, Wallander and Sherlock.

In a speech to the Royal Television Society in 2007, she articulated a fresh approach to the BBC's mission to inform and educate in the digital era.

[7] Bennett was a member of the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences' Executive Committee and of the Advisory Board of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.