Former BBC head of TV business development Charles Tigges has joined smart TV games network PlayJam as chief commercial officier.

Tigges previously acted as senior innovation manager at BSkyB, before joining the BBC in 2008.

As head of TV business development, he worked on a number of smart TV projects, including the BBC iPlayer.

Tigges' hiring follows the appointment of a number of games industry figures to PlayJam's advisory board in March.

Speak your brains

PlayJam CEO Jasper Smith offered Tigges a warm welcome, saying, "Charles has an in-depth understanding of the industry and an enormous respect within it.

"We are pleased to welcome him to the PlayJam team where he will play a central role in shaping the future of games on TV."

For his part, Tigges was keen to talk up the importance to gaming to smart TVs, and praise PlayJam's prescience.

"The next big wave of TV innovation will almost certainly come from gaming," he said.

"Jasper and his team have shown great foresight by attracting investors, many developers and almost all major CE vendors in this rapidly growing industry."

[source: PlayJam (PDF)]