I'm not past my sell-by date just yet, Ford tells Sainsbury's shareholders

Anna Ford, the former BBC newsreader-turned-boardroom director, mounted an impassioned defence of her credentials after being branded "yesterday's news" at J Sainsbury's annual shareholders meeting.

Ms Ford - the face of the One O'Clock News on BBC1 before quitting earlier this year - rebutted criticism from some private investors that she was an inappropriate candidate for a job on the group's board. To the surprise of Philip Hampton, Sainsbury's chairman, the supermarket chain's newest non-executive director livened up the AGM by hitting back at her detractors.

"It's slightly insulting to a woman of 62 to say I'm old news because I have more energy than ever before," Ms Ford said. Claiming she was a "terrible bugbear" to her former employer, she added that she was renowned at the BBC for her "independence of mind". Thinking independently, she noted, is a prerequisite quality for any non-executive director according to the Higgs report on corporate governance.

Some of the concern expressed by small shareholders about Ms Ford's appointment was backed up by their institutional counterparts. Almost one in 10 shares were either withheld from the vote on her election to the board or voted against giving her a seat in protest at the supermarket group's unconventional choice.

One small shareholder said she was cynical about Ms Ford's appointment, adding: "It's not what you know, it's whom you know."

Sainsbury's choice of Ms Ford also elicited some cynicism from wider City circles, coming within days of the competition watchdog ordering a formal investigation of the £100bn grocery sector. But the group's decision to step outside the narrow confines of the City chimed well with a government-commissioned report by Laura Tyson, dean of the London Business School, that was critical of the old boys' club approach to filling boardroom seats.

Ms Ford said her strengths lay in the broad perspective her years in the newsroom had given her, plus 25 years spent doing the family's weekly shop.

Shareholders also voted John McAdam, the chief executive of ICI, and Darren Shapland, Sainsbury's finance director, on to the company's board.