Ben Irving
Acting Director of Drama, BBC

Ben is currently Acting Director of Drama at the BBC. He joined BBC Drama as Head of Development in 2017, and worked as Commissioning Editor from 2018-2022. During this time he oversaw dramas including His Dark Materials, Giri/Haji, The Capture, Chloe, The Girl Before and Gentleman Jack, as well as Doctor Who and Casualty. Upcoming productions include Sherwood from James Graham, Inside Man from Steven Moffat, Grime Kids from Theresa Ikoko, and the final series of Happy Valley from Sally Wainwright. Prior to joining the BBC, Ben was VP, Production at David Heyman’s production company Heyday Films, and worked on features including Gravity, Paddington 1 & 2, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Jack Thorne’s adaptation of The Secret Garden.

Lou Patel
Freelance EP and Gallery Director and Founder, Share My Telly Job

Lou Patel is a Freelance EP and Gallery Director and Founder of Share My Telly Job with almost 17 years experience in the industry. Before children (BC) she worked mainly Factual Entertainment and Entertainment travelling the world as a PD and cutting her teeth as a multi-camera Direct on Big Brother, Love Island and 24 Hours in A & E.

She set up Share My Telly Job 7 years ago after facing barriers to working part-time whilst caring for young children and is a long-term advocate for flexible working and job-sharing as a way of retaining women in the industry. She recently won the Makers & Shakers ’Shaker of the Year’ award and the new Rise Influencer award for her work with SMTJ.

She now works mainly as a Director and Consultant at SMTJ along with her three Co-Directors supporting freelancers, broadcasters and production companies through the implementation of supportive workplace career progression programmes, multi-genre job-sharing schemes and consultancy across the industry on how to encourage positive cultural change within organisations.

Steven Handley
Channel 4

Steven has been at Channel 4 as a Commissioning Editor in Entertainment for 4 years, his wide remit takes in Reality, Satire & Gameshows and during his tenure he’s looked after The Last Leg, including the Paralympics and commissioned new series The Bridge, Sink or Swim, Jimmy Carr’s I Literally Just Told You & One Night In….

Mona Qureshi
Commissioning Editor, BBC Drama

Mona is currently Commissioning Editor (England) at BBC Drama, responsible for commissioning, developing and producing work across the breadth and range of its output. Joining the department in 2017, she has been responsible for a diverse portfolio of shows including: The Little Drummer Girl, Press, Les Miserables, A Christmas Carol, Sitting In Limbo, A Suitable Boy, in addition to continuing award-winning series Call the Midwife, now in its 12th season. Recent successes include the critically acclaimed Adam Kay’s This Is Going To Hurt, starring Ben Whishaw, and The Responder, starring Martin Freeman, from first-time writer Tony Schumacher. Upcoming projects include Red Rose, an original teen thriller for BBC3; Steve Knight’s second Dickens adaptation for the BBC, Great Expectations, starring Olivia Colman, and Hugo Blick’s The English, starring Emily Blunt.

Passionate about drama and storytelling, Mona has over twenty years’ experience in drama production, beginning her career in the 90s as a script reader, and script editor for BBC Films. She has served as Head of Development at Ruby Films, where credits included feature films Brick Lane, & The Other Boleyn Girl and Small Island for BBC Drama, and at The Ink Factory Susanne Bier’s ratings and Emmy award winning smash-hit The Night Manager, in 2015.

Samantha Lawrence
Managing Director, Monkey, part of Universal International Studios

Samantha Lawrence is the Managing Director of the award-winning production company Monkey, which is part of Universal International Studios, a division of Universal Studio Group. Samantha has led the company since 2017, alongside co-founders David Granger and Will Macdonald, building the company’s slate of content across live studio, structured reality, documentaries and scripted comedy. Home to an impressive roster of diverse talent, Monkey is responsible for long-running hits such as the BAFTA-winning Made in Chelsea (E4), RTS-winning The Real Housewives of Cheshire (ITVBe), The Emily Atack Show (ITV2), Dating No Filter (Sky) and Broadcast award-winning Don’t Hate The Playaz (ITV2), which made history by becoming the first UK series to feature an all Black female panel. Under Samantha’s direction, Monkey was named Multichannel Production Company of the Year at the Broadcast Digital Awards 2022. Prior to her role at Monkey, Samantha was Vice President of Business Ops and Production for Unscripted at NBCUniversal. Samantha’s previous roles also include running Silver River as Managing Director for nearly a decade, setting up Maverick London, and as a founding member of Love Productions.

Ninder Billing
Creative Director, Darlow Smithson Productions

As Creative Director at DSP, Ninder leads the premium factual slate. Before DSP she was Head of Specialist Factual at The Garden where she was responsible for the double BAFTA-nominated Operation Live, launched ITV true crime series Police Tapes, access series inside the Natural History Museum, and new onscreen talent on the BBC. She’s previously been a Commissioning Editor in Factual at C5 where she also oversaw the channel’s news output.

Layla Smith
Chief Executive, Objective Media Group

Layla Smith joined Objective Media Group as Chief Executive Officer in August 2015. An All3Media Company, OMG comprises industry-leading production companies across London, Glasgow, Manchester and Los Angeles. Within the UK-based group are Betty, Canard, Objective Fiction, OMG Scotland, Purple, Tannadice Pictures, Triple Brew Media, whilst OMG America and Main Event Media are based in LA.

In addition to spearheading the company in both the UK and America, Layla continues to executive produce many of the group’s shows including The Cube for TBS and Lingo for CBS.

Layla previously spent 15 years at ITV, latterly in a seven-year tenure as Controller of Entertainment for ITV Network where she oversaw I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, Dancing on Ice, Piers Morgan’s Life Stories, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Paul O’ Grady Live, Soccer Aid, Hell’s Kitchen, 71 Degrees North among other shows.

Prior to this Smith spent her early career producing a wide range of shows from Hell’s Kitchen in the UK and USA to Airline and The Pride of Britain Awards.

She was made Managing Director at John Stanley Productions in 2013, where she oversaw the expansion of the company into entertainment and scripted comedy with shows like Relatively Clever, Bull and Marley’s Ghosts.

Karen Wilson
Joint MD, Kudos

Karen joined Kudos in 2001 to script edit Spooks Series 1 and 2 (BBC One), Hustle (BBC One) and then went on to produce Hustle Series 2. Karen then became an Executive Producer, working alongside BAFTA and Olivier award winning directors and writers on series including Hustle, Spooks, Scars (Channel 4), Holby Blue (BBC One), The Doctor Who Hears Voices (Channel 4), Spooks: Code 9 (BBC 3), Utopia (Channel 4) and The Tunnel (Sky Atlantic). In March 2019, Karen was appointed as joint Managing Director.

Karen’s television career began at World Productions where she worked as a Drama Development Assistant to Tony Garnett. After two years, Karen left World Productions to begin her freelance career with dramas including This Life (BBC), Undercover Heart (BBC) and City Central (BBC). Karen then joined Thames Television as a script editor for The Bill (ITV) and two years later joined the BBC’s Drama Department script editing Murder in Mind, along with various other development projects.

Alisa Pomeroy
Head of Documentaries, Channel 4

Alisa joined Channel 4 in 2015 and has been responsible for a number of stand-out and award-winning programmes. These have included Jade: The Reality Star who Changed Britain, Baby Surgeons: Delivering Miracles; Crime and Punishment, Barrymore: The Body in the Pool as well as Undercover Police: Hunting Paedophiles and most recently Jeremy Kyle Show: Death on Daytime.

Jamie Munro
Joint MD, Greenbird

Jamie Munro is Joint Managing Director of Greenbird Media, a TV production company incubator, investor and business accelerator working across all genres of content including entertainment, factual entertainment, factual, drama and comedy.

Jamie’s career includes roles as Joint Managing Director of Shine TV, Commercial Director at Tiger Aspect and prior to that he spent 12 years at the BBC in various roles including Commercial Director for Drama, Entertainment and Children’s.

Greenbird was created 10 years ago to help production companies achieve their full potential, by focusing on supporting growth across the business and commercial areas of the businesses. Over the years they’ve worked with a number of successful TV producers and on-screen talent who’ve wanted to achieve their ambitions of starting and growing their own companies

With more than 30 years’ experience in television production, Jamie, and his business partner Stuart Mullin, offer expertise in the commercial exploitation of intellectual property and licensing deals, give strategic and operational support, offer back-office administration systems, and provide producers access to innovative funding models. They give executive level support by sitting on the production company boards as directors.

Stuart and Jamie also created Teal, a boutique inventory trading agency where they seek to fund programming using innovative trading models, Teal sits at the crossroads between the media agency and television world.

Emma Wakefield
Managing Director, Lambent

Emma established Lambent in 1996 where she has created a wide range of acclaimed documentaries, factual series, and education programming. As an Executive Producer Emma has been responsible for much of the company’s award-winning output and continues to build on the company’s creative strengths as Lambent grows. Credits include KIDS BEHIND BARS for BBC3, OUT OF JAIL AND ON THE STREETS for BBC1, and THE SPECIAL NEEDS HOTEL for Channel 5. Documentaries include ADDICTED PARENTS: LAST CHANCE TO KEEP MY CHILDREN for BBC2 and BAFTA-nominated RAPED: MY STORY for Channel 5.

Recent projects include BAFTA and Broadcast Award-winning DEFENDING DIGGA D and NOWHERE TO RUN: ABUSED BY OUR COACH – both new directors films for BBC3.

Simon Raikes
Commissioning Editor, Disney +, Star and National Geographic, Disney+

Simon Raikes has been a Commissioning Editor for Unscripted at National Geographic Channels since 2018 and at Disney+ since autumn 2021. He has developed, commissioned and executive produced a broad range of singles and series for the US and international channels – and the National geographic tile on Disney+ – including Drain the Oceans, Car SOS, Nazi Megastructures, Lost Cities With Albert Lin, Buried Secrets of the Bible, The Real Right Stuff, Mars: One day on the Red Planet and Narco Wars.

Before joining Nat Geo, Simon spent 3 years as a factual Commissioning Editor at Channel 5 where he commissioned some of the channel’s defining shows, including Can’t Pay – We’ll Take it Away, The Yorkshire Vet, Gangland, Britain’s Bloodiest Dynasty, 10,000BC, Body Donors and the Inside….and Year in the Wild strands.

Before Channel 5, Simon was co-founder and Creative Director of Wildfire TV, where he developed and delivered more than 100 hours of factual programming for international and UK broadcasters.  Credits include: Time Team, The Big Royal Dig Live, Digging the Great Escape, Wild Things with Dominic Monaghan, The Real DaVinci Code, and Walking Through History with Tony Robinson.

Sean Doyle
Director, Unscripted Content, EMEA, The Walt Disney Company, Disney+

Sean Doyle is the Director of Unscripted for Original Productions in EMEA. He is responsible for commissioning original unscripted content for Disney+ and Star.

Prior to joining Disney, Sean was Deputy Head of Features & Formats at Channel 4 from 2019. As well as commissioning for C4 he was responsible for More4 where he set the editorial vision for the channel, which led to More4 being nominated for Channel of the Year for the first time in its history in 2020, as well as commissioning the channel’s most successful ratings programme ever in Matt Baker: Our Farm in the Dales.

Previous to this, Sean was Commissioning Editor for Channel 5 from June 2015 until December 2018. During his time working for Ben Frow as the channel grew its ratings and reputation including an Edinburgh TV Award for Channel of the Year, he was responsible for a number of long running and successful series as well as being the commissioner behind the channel’s successful reboot of Blind Date.

Before this, Sean was Head of Development for BBC Daytime, Features & Formats where he created the likes of RTS nominated Blitz Cities.

Sarah Stevenson
Head of Development, Yeti

With over 100 hours of commissions under her belt as Head of Development, Sarah’s passion for Factual TV is impossible to miss. Creating factual content that entertains as well as educates is what drives her. From crafting competition series such as The Great Big Tiny Design Challenge for More 4 to gritty access docs like Inside the World’s Toughest Prisons for Netflix and 999 Britain from Above for ITV, talent led specialist factual formats such as 48 Hours to Victory with Dermot O’Leary for Channel 4 to popular consumer series like Ch5’s Secrets of your Supermarket Food, Sarah devises commissionable, returnable ideas across the UK, US and SVOD market.

Securing and winning exclusive access to people and places has long been one of her key talents. Throughout her career, Sarah has worked closely with several household names including: The NHS, NPAS, MOD, Jersey Zoo, Greggs, Nationwide Environmental Health Departments, UK Police Forces, The Air Ambulance & Yellowstone National Park. Sarah loves nothing more than the opportunity to walk in someone else’s shoes, collaborating with them and showcasing their story for the world to see and celebrate. Advocating for inclusion and reframing disability on and off camera in the industry is a subject matter close to her heart and Sarah is actively involved in several schemes and projects within the industry to increase awareness and action change.

Poppy Dixon
Director of Documentaries and Factual, Sky UK

Poppy Dixon is Sky UK’s Director of Documentaries and Factual, where she is responsible for all original commissioning for Sky Documentaries, Sky Nature and Sky Crime.  Since the launch of the factual channels in 2020, Sky has forged a path as a destination for premium narrative driven box-set series, feature documentaries and bold natural history programming, with Sky Documentaries winning the Broadcast Digital Award for Best Factual Channel, only a year after its launch. Some of the key successes for the channels since launch include Tina, Liverpool Narcos, Ghislaine Maxwell: Epstein’s Shadow, The Man Who Bought Cricket, Murder in the Valleys and Shark: with Steve Backshall.

Before Sky, Poppy had been a producer and development executive for over 15 years, with credits including Misha and the Wolves, Untouchable, The Imposter, American Animals and Three Identical Strangers.

Polly Hill
Head of Drama, ITV

Polly Hill was appointed ITV’s Head of Drama in 2016, where her commissions have so far included Liar, Trigger Point, Anne, and The Pembrokeshire Murders. Forthcoming series include The Thief, His Wife and The Canoe, and Holding.

Before joining ITV, Polly was Controller of BBC Drama Commissioning, ordering series including King Charles III by Mike Bartlett, Broken by Jimmy McGovern, Howard’s End adapted by Kenneth Lonnergan, McMafia, Damilola: Our Loved Boy, and The Replacement.

Prior to this, Hill was the BBC’s Head of Independent Drama between 2011 and 2015, where she was responsible for a wide range of acclaimed and award-winning dramas including The Night Manager, The Missing, The Honourable Woman, The Shadow Line, Accused, Ripper Street, The Village, Death In Paradise, Poldark, and Wolf Hall.

Polly joined the BBC in 2005 as an executive producer and then became a commissioning editor in 2008. Before joining the BBC, Polly was a producer on Cherished by Gwyneth Hughes, which won the Grierson Award. She worked at Channel 4 where she oversaw the first series of Teachers and started her career working for Verity Lambert, before getting her first script-editing job.

Pinki Chambers
Commissioning Editor, Entertainment, BBC

Pinki is a commissioning editor for BBC Entertainment and her remit includes shows ranging from comedy through to factual-entertainment, across BBC One, Two and Three. Recent titles include THIS IS MY HOUSE for BBC One which was hosted by Stacey Dooley, and coming up on BBC Three is GASSED UP, hosted by rapper Mist, which is a celebrity adrenaline challenge series.

Prior to this, Pinki commissioned FIRST AND LAST, a punter-based game show for Saturday nights on BBC One, hosted by Jason Manford, and the satirical THE MASH REPORT for BBC Two, hosted by Nish Kumar.

Pinki’s other credits include titles such as WOULD I LIE TO YOU?, HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU, LIVE AT THE APOLLO, MOCK THE WEEK, UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE, THE BIG ASIAN STAND-UP and MURDER IN SUCCESSVILLE, amongst others.

Nick Curwin
Chair, Matisse

With a background in print journalism, Nick began his TV career at LWT and then Mentorn, where he ran its Folio division. He launched Firefly, now Dragonfly, with Magnus Temple in 2004. There he pioneered so-called “factual Theatre” with programmes such as the award-winning Anatomy For Beginners (C4), as well as the “rig show”, with the BAFTA-nominated The Family (C4) and BAFTA-winning One Born Every Minute (C4).  He sold Firefly to Shine in 2007 and left with Temple three years later to launch a second production company, The Garden, producers of 24 Hours in A&E (C4), 24 Hours in Police Custody (C4), Keeping Britain Alive (BBC2) and The Audience (C4) – all BAFTA-nominated – as well as the BAFTA-winning Bedlam (C4).  The Garden was twice voted the best indie in the country by its peers.  Four years after ITV Studios acquired The Garden, he stood down as CEO and joined the Board of C4’s Indie Growth Fund.  After a year as Creative Mentor to investee companies and advising the channel on new investments, he left to launch indie advisory service Matisse.

Michelle Chappell
Creative Director, Workerbee

Michelle joined Workerbee (part of Banijay UK) as Creative Director in 2019, leading a wide range of non-scripted from premium documentaries to factual entertainment for the UK and global markets. Workerbee is now one of the largest non-scripted companies in the North. Recent highlights include The Bridge for Channel 4 and HBO Max, Idris Elba’s Fight School for BBC2, Janet for A&E (US) and Peter Crouch: Save Our Game and The Real Death in Paradise for Discovery +.

Before joining Workerbee, Michelle spent the last 10 years as a commissioning editor in the Channel 4 Documentaries department and Channel 5 Factual. Prior to that Michelle worked at the BBC and in production for 12 years.

Lee Mason
Director, Scripted Content, EMEA, The Walt Disney Company, Disney+

Lee recently joined the Disney+ EMEA team in July 2021 as a Director of Scripted Content, commissioning original content for Disney+ and Star.

Prior to joining Disney, Lee was a Drama Commissioning Editor at UK broadcaster Channel 4 for nearly a decade. He cut his commissioning teeth on the long-running soap Hollyoaks, then going on to oversee dramas including Ackley Bridge by Ayub Khan Din, Loaded by Jon Brown, the final series of Paul Abbott’s No Offence, The End of the F**king World by Charlie Covell, the critically acclaimed It’s A Sin by Russell T Davies and Jack Thorne’s upcoming drama Help, starring Stephen Graham and Jodie Comer.

Kevin O’Brien
Commissioning Editor, Entertainment, ITV

As Commissioning Editor for ITV Entertainment, Kevin is responsible for new ideas pitched to the department as well as looking after leading existing brands such as I’m A Celebrity, The National Television Awards and Soccer Aid.  Recent commissions include Ant & Dec’s Limitless Win, The Void, Game of Talents, Beverley & Jordan Destination Wedding, Don’t Rock the Boat, On Yer Bike for Soccer Aid, Jimmy Nesbitt: A Game of Two Halves, 2 Billy Connolly specials and 2 series of I’m a Celebrity in Wales!

 Kevin joined ITV Commissioning from Lime Pictures where he executive produced one of the year’s most talked about reality shows, Gemma Collins: Diva Forever and devised comedy entertainment format Stand Up & Deliver for Channel 4.

Prior to Lime, Kevin was an executive producer at ITV Studios.  He won a BAFTA for I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here S18 which was also the highest rating series in the history of the show.  Kevin was an executive producer on Love Island, responsible for the live final in Mallorca, the weekly live sister show Love Island: Aftersun (which he developed) and the expansion of the LI brand including a new daily podcast Love Island: The Morning After, a live fan event at the ExCel, an official book and various commercial activities including two TV ad campaigns for major brands.

With proven experience in Entertainment, Reality and Game Shows, Kevin’s versatility has seen him develop and win various commissions during his career including the reality show Survival of the Fittest (ITV2), high volume dating series Dress to Impress (ITV2) and gameshows Keep it in the Family (ITV) and Alan Carr’s Celebrity Ding Dong (C4).  He was also instrumental in redeveloping Dancing on Ice (ITV) for its successful return in 2018 and has won gameshow pilots with his own original formats for both BBC and ITV.

During his time with ITV Studios, Kevin spearheaded the channel’s charity extravaganza Text Santa working closely with all the ITV commissioners, department heads and programme executives to grow it year on year.  He also Exec’d Love Island spin-off shows Chris & Olivia: Crackin’ On (ITVBe) and Chris & Kem: Straight Outta Love Island (ITV2) as well as series producing multiple series of I’m a Celebrity and the ITV2 spin off show Get Me Out of Here NOW! achieving record ratings for the latter.

As well as working across the ITV family of channels, Kevin has also produced entertainment shows for BBC, Channel 4, E4 and Sky whilst working for companies such as Endemol, RDF, Objective, Open Mike, Whizz Kid, Comic Relief, Initial, Townhouse, Granada, and a long stint at the BBC.

He started his TV career as a department runner for BBC Light Entertainment.

Kelly McGolpin
Head of Development, Objective Fiction

Kelly started her career in scripted comedy at the BBC before moving onto roles at companies including Avalon, Eleven Film, Pett Productions, Fremantle UK and Southern Star Australia.

Development is where her passion lies and what she’s built the last ten years of her career around, working alongside creatives to develop their ideas into award winning content. Her credits include co-devising and producing Dr Brown’s C4 sketch show, and developing and producing BAFTA nominated Chewing Gum for E4 alongside Michaela Coel.

Joining Objective Fiction in November 2015 as Development Producer, she was named Head of Development in June 2017. In her time at Objective Kelly has developed, produced and latterly executive produced Mae Martin and Joe Hampson’s multi-award-winning show Feel Good. She has also produced the Ryan Shelton fronted Blaps How to Life for Channel 4; Emma Sidi’s Last Resort for Sky, and most recently BBC Three shorts Small Doses, created by comedian Helen Bauer.

During Kelly’s early years in comedy she was a writer and performer on the London circuit, and ran industry renowned live comedy nights alongside some of the most exciting up and coming talent in the UK.

Johanna Devereaux
Director, Scripted Content, EMEA, The Walt Disney Company, Disney+

Johanna Devereaux joined the Disney+ EMEA team in 2019 as Director of Scripted Content, commissioning drama and comedy for Disney+ and Star. Among the forthcoming series she is overseeing are Sally Wainwright’s Disney+ series The Ballad of Renegade Nell, produced by Lookout Point; J Blakeson’s Star Original heist series Culprits, produced by Stephen Garrett; and Star comedy series Extraordinary, from new writer Emma Moran and Sid Gentle Films.

Prior to this role Johanna served as Director of Development for ABC Studios International, responsible for establishing the studio’s first scripted strategy outside of North America and building a slate across EMEA and APAC. She oversaw series including Harrow, starring Ioan Gruffudd, from Hoodlum Entertainment; and The Gloaming, by Vicky Madden, starring Emma Booth and Ewen Leslie.

Before joining Disney, Johanna worked in IP and underlying rights at Curtis Brown and as a development executive in the independent production sector.

Jo Clinton-Davis
Controller of Factual, ITV

As ITV Factual Controller Jo’s commissions include: Long Lost Family/Born Without Trace; Diana Our Mother; Queen’s Green Planet; Crime documentaries e.g An Hour to Catch a Killer with Trevor Mcdonald; HMP Belmarsh with Ross Kemp; Joanna Lumley’s Silk Road and major single docs e.g Kate Garraway Finding Derek. Also the original versions of Fact Ent franchises e.g Real Full Monty/Paul O’Grady for Love of Dogs (both of which are now brilliantly run by others on the team!)

At the BBC, Jo was Head of Independent Commissioning and commissioned Masterchef and Hairy Bikers amongst many other shows. Jo Series Directed & Produced BBC One’s 7 part award winning documentary series ‘Making Babies’ and 6 parter – ‘the Shop’ about Selfridges, plus many single docs for award winning strand 40 Minutes and Inside Story. Cut (long) teeth on Newsnight, Crimewatch etc

Jimmy Mulville
Managing Director, Hat Trick Productions

Jimmy Mulville was one of the founders of Hat Trick Productions in 1986. Since then, he’s overseen its growth into one of the country’s leading producers of popular and award-winning comedy, drama, entertainment and digital media. He has a proven track record of identifying, developing and nurturing the best new writing and on-screen talent in the UK. His success spans a 30-year career; from long-running hits Whose Line is it Anyway?  (the first UK show sold to the US), Have I Got News For You  and Father Ted  to recent shows such as Episodes  starring Matt LeBlanc, Flack  starring Anna Paquin, Kate & Koji  starring Brenda Blethyn and Jimmy Akingbola and Channel 4’s award-winning hit Derry Girls.

In 1999 Jimmy received the BAFTA Award for Outstanding Creative Contribution to Television. He is a Fellow of the Royal Television Society and received an honorary doctorate from the University of Liverpool.  Before moving to television in 1982, he produced for BBC Radio, where he developed and produced the award-winning RADIO ACTIVE.

For more than 30 years Jimmy has been working with some of the best writers, producers, performers and crew – not to mention a superb back-up team – who in turn attract the best on-screen talent.  Hat Trick remains at the forefront of the creation of new television.  Some of the brightest names in British television began their careers and continue to build them under the Hat Trick brand.

Fatima Salaria
Managing Director, Naked

Fatima Salaria joined Naked in September 2020 and following a merger with sister label Boundless, takes charge of Naked Television, whose programming slate stretches the gamut from hit entertainment franchises including The Apprentice and The Rap Game UK; enduring popular features and factual entertainment series Grand Designs and Escape to the Country; to high-end factual and specialist factual programmes including 60 Days on the Streets, The Killer Nanny, Did she do it?, Ghislaine, Prince Andrew and the Paedophile, and Planet Sex fronted by Cara Delevingne.

Fatima joined from Channel 4, where, as Head of Specialist Factual, she was responsible for History, Science, Natural History, Arts and Adventure. Her department’s output ranged from popular formats including SAS: Who Dares Wins to award-winning documentaries including 100 Vaginas, The Curry House Kid and 3 Identical Strangers. She supervised hit series My Grandparents War and Putin: A Russian Spy Story, greenlit timely specials including Ramadan in Lockdown and Race Against The Virus, and shaped the Channel’s response to the killing of George Floyd with the Take Your Knee Off My Neck series of shorts.

Prior to joining Channel 4, Fatima was Commissioning Editor for Religion and Ethics at the BBC and took part in the first Commissioner Development Programme. She commissioned award-winning Muslims Like Us, Abortion on Trial, We are British Jews, The Pilgrimage and curated the Black and British and the Partition seasons for BBC2 amongst many other series as well as being the Commissioner for Who Do You Think You Are? across BBC One, Two, and Four.

Fatima is also the Executive Chair of the Edinburgh TV Festival, a member of the Bafta and Grierson TV Committee. She is also a Mentor for Screenskills, Wonder Woman and Breakthrough leaders for Fremantle.

Carolyn Payne
Commissioning Editor, Disney +, Star and National Geographic, Disney+

Carolyn Payne is a Commissioning Editor for Disney +, Star and National Geographic, working across both development and production.  Carolyn has developed, commissioned, and executive produced major premium factual series, most notably the global award winning hit series 9/11: One Day In America (72 Films) the Emmy award winning Inside North Korea’s Dynasty (72 Films); and Dian Fossey: Secrets in the Mist (Tigress).

Carolyn has also been responsible for major global hit Nat Geo series including Drain the Oceans, Car SOS, Primal Survivor, Europe From Above, Lost Treasures of Egypt, and Fiennes Return to the Nile

Caroline Murphy
Head of Indie Growth Fund, Channel 4

Caroline joined Channel 4 as Head of the Indie Growth Fund in 2019.

Caroline has over 20 years of experience in the media industry in a variety of senior strategy and business development roles. These include Senior Adviser in the BBC’s corporate strategy team and SVP of Commercial Development at BBC Studios where she was responsible for developing and rolling out the BBC’s international channels business.

Her most recent job before joining Channel 4, was Global Director of Strategy and M&A at Fremantle Media where she was responsible for a significant number of investments in Indies and digital content companies.

Since joining the Indie Growth Fund Caroline has been responsible for 11 new investments in to the fund and managed 4 successful exits .

Caroline Hollick
Head of Drama, Channel 4

Caroline is Head of Drama at Channel 4, and lives in Leeds.  Recent successes include groundbreaking series It’s a Sin by Russell T Davies and BAFTA-nominated Adult Material by Lucy Kirkwood, alongside ongoing series Ackley Bridge and Hollyoaks. Newer shows include Screw by Rob Williams, Deceit by Emilia di Girolamo and Help by Jack Thorne.

Previously, she was Creative Director at Studio-Canal owned RED Production Company. Before that she was Head of Development at RED for seven years and she began her career as a production trainee at Yorkshire Television.

Cameron Roach
Founder and Executive Producer, Rope Ladder Fiction

Cameron Roach is Founder and Executive Producer at Rope Ladder Fiction, a Manchester based Independent Production Company. Rope Ladder Fiction co-produce Waterloo Road for BBC1 and have an emphasis on next generation talent. The company is in funded development with a number of broadcasters, and is one of PACTs Future30 indies. Previously Cameron worked at Sky Television with Anne Mensah, and latterly as Director of Drama, where the team built a portfolio of commercial and critical hits, and won the reputation of being a preferred international co-producing partner. Key titles include Britannia; Riviera; Tin Star; Chernobyl; I Hate Suzie; Gangs of London; The Third Day and Save Me. Prior to working for Sky, Cameron served as Series Producer and Executive Producer on a number of popular and critically acclaimed shows for a variety of channels and networks. Key titles include Life on Mars, Silk, Young James Herriot, Waterloo Road, Bad Girls, Footballers Wives, Moses Jones and Casualty. Cameron is Chair for RTS North West.

Ash Atalla
Founder/MD, Roughcut TV

Ash Atalla, is Britain’s most prolific and award-winning comedy producer. With a Primetime Emmy, a Golden Globe, six BAFTAs, four RTS awards and three British Comedy awards to his name, Ash is best known for the multi award-winning series The Office, The IT Crowd, Stath Lets Flats, Cuckoo and People Just Do Nothing.

As he continues his hugely successful career in television, established over the past 20 years, Ash recently turned his attention to the movie industry and drama. His first feature film, People Just Do Nothing: Big In Japan, launched to critical acclaim in summer 2021. Ash also has a number of high-end drama projects in development including Sarah Vaughan’s psychological thriller Little Disasters. Vaughan’s Anatomy Of A Scandal will air this spring on Netflix and is adapted for screen by David E. Kelley (Big Little Lies) and Melissa James Gibson (House Of Cards).

Ash has an acute talent for discovering and nurturing new writers and actors. Writer, actor and comedian, Tim Renkow, was nominated for Breakthrough Act at the RTS Awards 2020 and his comedy series Jerk, won the Representation of Disability Award at the MIPCOM Diversify TV Excellence awards. Tim was also selected as a writer-performer for BAFTA Breakthrough. Jerk series 2 aired last year on BBC One.

A pioneering producer in the comedy genre with over 60 executive producer credits, Ash also discovered Jack Rooke, creator and writer of upcoming C4 comedy and Jamie Demetriou, the BAFTA award-winning, creator, writer and star of Stath Lets Flats.

Ash has consolidated his position as an inclusive and committed industry leader with a particular focus on diversity and disability within programming and the workplace. His most recent series Bloods, created by Samson Kayo and Nathan Bryon, starring Samson Kayo and Jane Horrocks aired on Sky One in May 2021 and a second series will air in spring 2022.

As well as producing television formats for the UK, Ash is constantly exploring unique formats that can play abroad, especially in the US television landscape. The BAFTA award-winning Stath Lets Flats aired on HBO MAX last year.

Previous successes include Trollied for Sky One, which broke records as the highest-rated multichannel comedy launch in British TV history. Roughcut TV also made US-based multi-cam comedy I Live With Models (Comedy Central), Hospital People (BBC1), Carters Get Rich (SKY1), Top Coppers, a cop film spoof (BBC3) and World’s Craziest Fools (BBC3), starring Mr. T.  In addition, Roughcut TV has made pilots for US formats of Cuckoo for NBC and People Just Do Nothing for Amazon.

Ash is a regular commentator on race, politics, disability & diversity in television and film both on & off screen plus the comedy & drama landscape. He writes a regular column for Broadcast magazine.

Andrea Hamilton
Managing Director, Modest TV

Andrea has been working in the television industry for 25 years.  She is currently Managing Director of ModestTV which was started in 2019 to create and produce entertainment formats.  In 2020 they produced ‘Little Mix the Search’ for prime-time Saturday night BBC1, and in 2021 produced and sold their first studio dating format to RTL in Germany, where it is currently filming a second series.  Previous to this Andrea was MD of OmTV, a venture with a Chinese production company.  As an Executive Producer Andrea worked on ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ (series 10 & 11 and many specials), The Voice (series 1) and ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ (series 2).  In other production roles Andrea worked in fact-ent on ‘This Morning’ ‘Richard & Judy’, in reality on ‘Big Brother’ and on music events such as the Brit Awards and the MOBO’s. As a Commissioner Editor, Andrea spent 6 years at Sky1 working across many projects including ‘Project Catwalk’, The Paul McKenna series, and ‘Are You Smarter Than a 10 Year Old’.

Alf Lawrie
Head of Factual Entertainment, Channel 4

Alf Lawrie has been Channel 4’s Head of Factual Entertainment since 2018. His team are responsible for some of the portfolio’s best-loved shows including The Great British Bake Off, the revamped Married At First Sight, and Gogglebox. Recent new output includes Handmade: Britain’s Best Woodworker, 60 Days With The Gypsies, and RST-nominated Joe Lycett vs The Oil Giant.

Before joining Channel 4, Alf was an executive producer at Blast! and Shine.