London, England, United Kingdom
Creative leader and industry connector with 20+ years shaping stories and talent across broadcast, digital, live events, and global cultural organisations. I bring deep expertise in production, storytelling and audience engagement, paired with a strategic focus on talent development, cultural transformation, and creative leadership. Most recently, I played a key role in shaping talent strategy, programming, and culture initiatives at BAFTA—supporting sector-wide conversations with senior screen industry decision-makers and championing pathways for emerging and under-represented talent. I excel at the intersection of creativity, strategy, and senior stakeholder influence; thriving where creative thinking, collaboration, and value-led partnerships drive meaningful change. **Currently exploring senior roles in creative strategy, talent and culture innovation, and industry partnerships.**
Managing BAFTA’s industry-level talent initiative, Elevate, to support producers working in scripted and unscripted across film and television in the UK, through a year-round programme in collaboration with the UK’s broadcasters, streamers and indies to develop talent. Ultimately working to drive a more inclusive industry.
Driving public and industry engagement with BAFTA’s annual awards (film, television and craft) through a series of hosted in-person and online conversations that bring global talents together to discuss their work and collaboration, inspiring the next generation of talent as well as fans. Most recently producing BAFTA’s annual David Lean Lecture, the centrepiece of BAFTA’s public programme, with filmmaker Ryan Coogler delivering the keynote. Previous speakers include Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman, Paul Greengrass, David Lynch and Spike Lee.
With solid understanding of a wide range of factual entertainment genres and formats: I have produced, edited and scripted across the network’s inventory of factual entertainment; from outrageous obsessions to feats of engineering, wild conspiracy theories to deep dive discoveries and dreamy weddings to criminal masterminds. Serving to maximise content value in line with business goals, whilst retaining the integrity of the stories told. Strong editorial judgment, versatile script writing and edit producing are balanced with an awareness for programming strategies, brand identity and channel management. I am purposeful and resilient, with an ability to work effectively on a range of projects simultaneously and in collaboration with shareholders. Under this remit, I have successfully managed editorial on key promotables of global franchises that included Gold Rush, 90 Day Fiancé, Long Island Medium and How It's Made; live events such as Expedition Unknown and evergreens such as conservation documentary Tigerland and lifestyle special When Harry Met Meghan. With a regional expertise to offer, I have also been instrumental in supporting Discovery’s footprint in the MENA region; working across the launch of their Quest Arabiya partnership and beIN affiliate channels, developing editorial guidelines for both. Such cultural awareness has lent itself easily to additionally serving the EMEA business in other growth markets, namely Africa and Russia. I explored design thinking, leadership and business innovation in answering CREATE and SPARK, internal drives encouraging idea generation. From concept to development, I collaborated with teams to deliver presentations and pitches to panels, with considerations of audience analytics,fan engagement, production targets and budget costs/forecasts.
Leading with sound editorial knowledge, ensuring brand identity and creative visions align to produce two lifestyle series for FTA channel, TLC Turkey and a mid-form science series for digital platform, DPLAY. Adapting global franchises and working collaboratively with partners and shareholders, I oversee the editorial to create content that speaks to our audience. Taking into account budget and filming constraints, I help support and guide producers through the essential casting and development process to ensure great characters and stories that will connect with our viewers. Throughout post-production, I communicate with clear editorial guidance and a constructive point of view; the aim being to empower them to realise the creative vision set out. Working simultaneously across projects, I am confident at the helm and able to balanced big picture oversight with small detail management.
Returning to the Doha Film Institute once again, I lead the charge through their Qumra 2017 industry event. Whether directing a multi-cam shoot of a Masterclass celebrating the impact of Joshua Oppenheimer’s storytelling, setting up short-form journey films with first-time filmmakers or conducting one-on-one talent interviews with auteur Bruno Dumont or documentarian Rithy Panh, my mission was to create and share engaging content. Qumra is an initiative by the DFI which seeks to provide mentorship, nurturing, and hands-on development for filmmakers from Qatar and around the world. The strategy with their online content this year was to create quick, digestible, mobile-focused content for multiple media platforms, with a plan to upload the full-length content at a later date for use as an education tool and resource. A film institute such as this is a huge collaborative, serving a cultural purpose with passion at its heart - a calling I very much respond to.
Working for the world's leading producer of lifestyle programming on a tight turnaround brought together my passion for food with my regional expertise and end-to-end production experience. The first of its kind project for Scripps - in terms of customisation and reversioning - allowed me to produce a bespoke series of "The Big Eat" for the Middle East: a celebration of the region's love of food coupled with recipes from the Food Network's treasured chefs. Proactive, decisive and leading with initiative to meet the creative brief, I used my vast contacts and social media networks to cast fluent Arabic speakers of all generations and regional backgrounds to bring colour and character to the content. The role also required me to direct filming, edit produce the offline and deliver a script full of humour to boot.
Qumra is an innovative industry event created by the Doha Film Institute (DFI) with a mission to foster and facilitate new voices in Arab cinema and beyond. My role throughout the event was to produce the in-house content and help in management of the crews and edit. A seasoned DFI contractor, I produced and directed coverage of Qumra's industry events, as well as conducting interviews with this year's Masterclass talent (Academy Award nominees Joshua Oppenheimer and James Schamus, Caméra d’Or winner Naomi Kawase and Golden Lion winner Aleksandr Sokurov), delegates and the public. Coverage can be found on: http://www.dohafilminstitute.com/qumra