Leading Creative Companies – Class of 2022!

TRC developed the Leading Creative Companies course specifically industry leaders in mind to help maintain focus, direction, creative output and team morale.

Here are the amazing leaders in this year’s programme.

Christian Hills, True North Productions

Christian’s career at True North spans almost 15 years joining as Assistant Producer and further
working his way up to Executive Producer.

His broadcasting career originally began in Granada TV’s regional news and sports department and he
has also worked for ITV and BBC in current affairs, factual entertainment and documentaries.

While at True North he’s made everything from single hours to multiple series and highlights include
award winning documentaries Stealing Shakespeare and My New Hand, both
for BBC One.

Wendy Rattray, Hello Halo

Wendy is an award winning Executive Producer. She began her career on The Big Breakfast (Channel 4)
and then moved on to producing several of the early ground breaking series of Big Brother
and Celebrity Big Brother (Channel 4). She has executive produced across factual
entertainment, specialist factual and documentaries and some of her recent credits include
Fashion’s Dirty Secrets: Stacey Dooley Investigates (BBC One), Grizzly Bear Cubs and Me
(BBC Two) and MisFITS Like Us(BBC Three). The biggest shock of her TV career was
travelling across the high Arctic to make Ice Town(BBC Earth) where to her surprise, and
all of those who know her, she discovered a surprising love of remote, wild places!

Amanda Dunleavy, Tyrone Productions

Amanda Dunleavy is an accomplished and highly creative TV Producer/Director, with over 18 years’
experience and thousands of broadcast hours for RTE, TV3, BBC and TG4 to her credit. She works as
Executive Producer, the team lead at award winning Tyrone Productions with offices in both Dublin
and Belfast. She is currently overseeing production on several ambitious factual projects, including
a landmark BAI supported, observational series on women’s health. A trusted supplier of quality
output, across all genres including, Factual, News, Lifestyle and Entertainment, programme credits
include The David Brophy Choir Series, Road to Rehab, On the street where you
live
, Stories from the Twin Towers, REHAB People of the Year Awards, The Late
Late Show and The News at One.

Rab Christie, The Comedy Unit

Rab first got involved in comedy at Glasgow University as part of a comedy act which won
the So You Think You’re Funny Award at the Edinburgh Fringe in 1990. At the Comedy Unit he has
worked as a producer, writer, script-editor and Exec-Producer and became MD in 2011. Credits include
Chewin the Fat, Rab C Nesbitt, Still Game, Scot Squad, The
Scotts
, Scotland’s Football Jukebox, Offside, Gary : Tank Commander,
Limmy’s Show! Burnistoun, Only an Excuse? The Rory Bremner
Review
, Karen Dunbar Show, Blowout, Tourist Trap, Scotland
in a Day
, Badults, Soft Border Patrol & Fags, Mags &
Bags
.

Fiona O’Sullivan, True North

Fiona’s first job in telly, which came after three years relentless effort to escape from retail
hell, was two weeks holiday cover in BBC Music and Arts. Her first job was to buy two bottles of
champagne from the bar! Fiona’s contract was extended a few times (!) and she stayed at the BBC for
nine years mostly working on Features, Formats and Travel Shows. Fiona left to Series Produce
Relocation Relocation at IWC, for which she relocated to Glasgow. After that Talkback,
Shiver and Lime Pictures beckoned where the highlights included developing and casting the first
series of TOWIE. She joined True North in 2011 and mostly works across fact-ent and reality shows.

Tammy Kennedy, Little Bird Films

Tammy is the co-founder and creative director at Little Bird Films. She’s responsible for the
company’s development slate and growing the business outside of Wales. In just over 12 months, Tammy
has won over 16hrs of commissions for S4C, BBC3, and Channel 4 and has helped grow the company from
two staff, to helping to lead a team of over 10 freelancers engaged across production and
development.

In 2020 she was selected onto the prestigious Factual Fast Track Wales development programme. This
ambitious initiative aims to invest in fast tracking the next generation of factual creative leaders
in Wales. Little Bird was also selected for Indielab and more recently selected as one of pact.’s
Future30 companies and the BBC’s Small Indie Fund.

Ross Harper, Red Sky

Ross Harper is co-founder and joint managing director of Red Sky. He is executive producer of many of
its productions, including Channel 4’s lockdown smash hit Spring at Jimmy’s Farm, the
award-winning Climategate: science of a scandal, and state-of-the-nation doc series Who
Owns Scotland?

Ross has been in senior leadership roles for a decade, including five years at Red Sky, where he is
involved in all aspects of the business, from operational matters to ideas development. Previously
he was a freelance series producer and producer/director. He began his career in news &
politics.

Vikkie Taggart, Stellify Media

Vikkie has worked for public and private companies over her career, predominately in a finance,
corporate governance, operations and business affairs capacity. Currently Director of Operations at
Stellify Media, responsible for the strategic operations, coordination, growth and profitability of
the company across the multiple locations in Belfast, London & Manchester. As part of the
Stellify partnership with Sony, she liaises directly with the BA and finance teams as well as the
international formats teams in Sony Pictures Entertainment Europe.

Vikkie has solid working relationships with commissioners across all major channels also dealing
directly with the financial and BA teams across all the networks. She is currently serving as Head
judge on the RTS NI Student Awards panel, having previously been Chair of the RTS NI.

Nia Thomas, Boom

Nia is responsible for overseeing Boom group’s multidisciplinary operations and her production
experience spans a variety of genres, including children’s, entertainment, factual, music and
events. Boom is one of Wales’s largest, indigenous production groups. Employing c.220 staff and
annually producing and delivering c.400 hours of multi-genre content to UK and international
broadcasters, the Boom group of companies is part of ITV Studios, and operates in a variety of
sectors, including production (Boom and Oxford Scientific Films), post-production (Gorilla) and
visual effects (Bait Studio). Boom Group’s credits include Big Zuu’s Big Eats (Dave);
Skin A&E (C5); Dom Delivers (BBC One); Project Z (Citv); 35
Diwrnod
(S4C); A Very British Country House (C4) and The Secret Life of our
Pets
(ITV). Nia sits on the boards of TRC, TAC, Screen Alliance Wales and Clwstwr.

Helen Tonge, Title Role Productions

Helen set up Title Role Productions alongside Ian in 2005. Over the years Title Role has established
a strong reputation for high quality and thought provoking content, several of the company’s long
running series have received Royal Television Society and Australian Academy Awards. Helen executive
produced a wide range of series and one-off documentaries at Title Role, which have been successful
both in the UK and around the world, with the Crimes That Shook brand transmitting into
over 200 territories. Some of Helen’s shows include Casualty at Christmas an upcoming
Christmas Fixed Rig special and a two-part series: British Airways: 100 years in the sky
for Channel 5, BBC3’s Paedophile Hunters: The rise of the Vigilantes and a new
international series on The World’s Most Extreme Families alongside our international crime
format: Crimes That Shook Australia (Foxtel).

Hayley Manning, Little Door Productions

Hayley Manning is the co-founder of Cardiff based drama production company Little Door Productions.
Set up in 2019, Little Door is a female-led company that produces quality drama for the local and
international market. Its first series, The Pact for BBC and US Studio Lionsgate, aired on
BBC One in 2021 with consolidated audiences of over 8 million viewers for Episode 1 which also made
it into iPlayer’s Top 10 most popular episodes for 2021. The show has sold well internationally.
Little Door have a strong slate of projects in development and will go into production on their
second series commission early in the 2022. Little Door is one of 25 companies recently awarded
support from the UK Global Screen Fund to help it expand into the global marketplace.

Hayley is joint MD of Little Door and oversees production, financial and business affairs matters.
Hayley comes from background of working in the the independent TV and film sector as COO, Head of
Production and Financial Controller.

Elwen Rowlands, Little Door Productions

Elwen Rowlands is the co-founder of Cardiff based drama production company Little Door Productions.
Set up in 2019, Little Door is a female-led company that produces quality drama for the local and
international market. Its first series, The Pact for BBC and US Studio Lionsgate, aired on
BBC One in 2021 with consolidated audiences of over 8 million viewers for Episode 1 which also made
it into iPlayer’s Top 10 most popular episodes for 2021. The show has sold well internationally.
Little Door have a strong slate of projects in development and will go into production on their
second series commission early in the 2022. Little Door is one of 25 companies recently awarded
support from the UK Global Screen Fund to help it expand into the global marketplace.

Elwen is joint MD and creative lead of Little Door. Over the course of her career, she has worked for
BBC, Channel 4, ITV, Sky and for leading independent Production companies on shows such as
Doctor Who, Life On Mars, Vera, Wide Sargasso Sea, The Last
Post
.

Kelda Crawford-McCann, Strident

Kelda is MD of Strident in Belfast. Since 2013 she’s overseen the development and production of more
than 200 hours of documentaries and factual series for BBC, RTÉ, ARTE, TG4, Virgin and UTV. This
content has been re-broadcast in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, USA, China, Greece, and Sri Lanka.
In 2021, her company was selected as a Channel 4 Emerging Indie and delivered its first commission
to the broadcaster. Strident actively supports new and emerging talent. Kelda started her career as
a BBC Trainee after graduating in Law. She has also produced for Sky, Discovery and ITV.

Robert Butterfield, Ricochet

Rob started at Ricochet in 2004 as an assistant producer and over the last 18 years has taken on
increasing responsibilities for the company. As Director of Programmes Rob is a key member of the
senior creative team and has helped devise and executive produce many of its successful returning
series including The Repair Shop and The Bidding Room for BBC, Food
Unwrapped
for C4 and Cowboy Builders for Channel 5. This year Rob packed his
suitcase and headed north to take on a fresh challenge running Ricochet’s new office in Glasgow.

Andrew Robertson, Very Nice TV

Andrew is Managing Director at Very Nice TV where he is passionate about entertainment and fact-ent
formats for multiple platforms. The company was established in 2018 and has multiple projects in
development as well as delivering two series of reality-entertainment series Mirror Mirror
for the BBC and comedy for Channel 4. The key goal is global-facing entertainment formats.