Red Bee Media's chief executive Pam Masters will step down on the 31 December to become vice chairman of the media company's board.

Masters has been chief executive of Red Bee since its inception three years ago and also headed up the company during its previous incarnation as BBC Broadcast.

Prior to this, she was responsible for pulling together the broadcast and creative divisions of the business, convincing the BBC to incorporate that division as BBC Broadcast. She also helped plan Broadcast Centre.

Pam then oversaw the sale of BBC Broadcast to a Macquarie consortium in June 2005, after which it became Red Bee Media.

Masters has been in broadcasting for 40 years and said of her time with the company: "It has been a fascinating journey taking this business from a two channel in-house BBC operation with 100 people to a multi-client commercial company of 1,300 staff with offices in six countries."

Red Bee Media has begun looking for a new chief executive and intends to appoint one before the end of the year. Masters will take the vice chairman role in January