Murdoch diva Natalie sings own praises

When Rupert Murdoch finally negotiated the purchase of the Wall Street Journal last year, he allowed the Bancroft family which owns Dow Jones – the Journal's parent company - one representative on the board of News Corp. When the Bancrofts couldn't make up their minds, he appointed a little-known junior member of the family, 27-year-old Natalie Bancroft, a budding mezzo-soprano who had graduated from a private conservatory in Lausanne and had no business qualifications whatsoever.

Cynical financial journalists saw it as another smart move by Murdoch to keep the family from sticking its oar in, and assumed that would be the last they'd hear of Natalie - certainly in her capacity as a News Corp board member, if not as an opera singer.

Now Bancroft has come out fighting. "The last thing I am is a pushover," the 27-year-old tells Portfolio magazine. "I'm not just some idiotic girl in piggy-tails yodelling."

The daughter of a Formula Two race driver, Hugh Bancroft III, and a Dutch-Brazilian model, Joyce Bancroft, Natalie uses the interview to outline her qualifications for the News Corp board. She points out that she's based in London, has a flexible schedule and sleeps only three to five hours a night.

She is multilingual, she adds, and routinely reads foreign-language newspapers. And rather than being intimidated by her fellow board members who are older, experienced and male, she says the prospect thrills her: "I have a much easier time understanding men. I was a tomboy. I love camping. I love sailing. I love doing boy stuff."

Recalling the endless arguments within the Bancroft family over the $5.6bn sale to Murdoch, Natalie is dismissive of her wider family. "There were so many negotiations going on, and the family was screwing it up right and left. My focus was more on, Jesus Christ, how am I related to these people?"

To prepare herself for her News Corp role, Bancroft plans to resume studies at the London School of Journalism - a course she enrolled in after high school but never completed, "I'm working my little butt off," she says. And she sees a link between her opera career and her News Corp duties: "The Wall Street Journal makes me think of opera," she says. "People are afraid of it."