THE TV Collective (TVC), in partnership with Fremantle, Indigo Talent, and Remy Blumenfeld’s Vitality Guru, has announced its 2023 cohort of 53 top Breakthrough Leaders in the UK TV industry.
This highly regarded initiative, launched in 2021, has garnered praise for its commitment to promoting diversity and nurturing talent.
In addition to being part of the prestigious Breakthrough Leaders program, these individuals will also have the opportunity to participate in the inaugural ‘Breakthrough Leaders Visionary’ Festival later this year.
Since its inception, the Breakthrough Leaders program has carefully selected 154 individuals and paired them with over 100 industry-leading executives, including notable figures like Jay Hunt, Creative Director, Europe at Apple, and Pat Younge, Managing Director of Skin in the Game Studios.
These partnerships provide invaluable mentorship, career guidance, and support to the participants. In fact, a survey conducted by TVC last year revealed that 78 per cent of the program’s cohorts believed that being a Breakthrough Leader had helped raise their profile, while 87 per cent acknowledged that their leadership roles had advanced their careers.
Remarkably, all participants expressed that the program had significantly improved their confidence.
Breakthrough Leaders was established to recognise and celebrate the outstanding talent of individuals from Black, Asian, and ethnic backgrounds working across all levels of the TV and production industry.
The nominees are carefully selected by their industry peers, highlighting their potential as future leaders who will play pivotal roles in shaping and redefining leadership in the TV sector, serving as proactive catalysts for positive change.
In an exciting development, the ‘Breakthrough Leaders Visionary’ festival will debut this autumn, further extending the initiative’s ethos.
This festival will bring together thought leaders, pioneers, and visionaries from Black, Asian, and ethnic backgrounds who are actively redefining and challenging the industry’s status quo.
Among the notable names set to join the festival are Femi Oyeniran, co-director and executive producer of the RTS-winning documentary “The Evolution of Black Music,” award-winning journalist and writer Afua Hirsch, acclaimed musical director Siddiq Babz Bey, as well as Junior Okoli and Chas Appeti, the creators and directors of the Bafta-winning series “Jungle” on Amazon Prime.
Amelia Brown, CEO, Fremantle UK said: “Having had the opportunity to hear from some of the previous Breakthrough Leaders alumni, it’s clear to see that this initiative is making a real difference to the careers of the senior leaders selected, and a real change in our industry.
“I am proud to be continuing our partnership with The TV Collective and am looking forward to working with another impressive intake of Breakthrough Leaders for the year ahead.”
Simone Pennant MBE, Founder of The TV Collective and Breakthrough Leaders, adds: “It’s an absolute honour to introduce our new cohort from the third year of Breakthrough Leaders, thank you for all the nominations; I cannot wait to see what they achieve.
“This year as an extension of the programme, we will also host our first one-day festival crammed full of masterclasses, panels and networking events curated by our leaders, that brings a host of content creators, execs, influencers and onscreen talents of colour together all in one place; to explore the current issues impacting the industry from our unique lens.
“As we know, talent of colour is often overlooked, with recruiters citing that they can’t find them or don’t have the right experience as an excuse. Breakthrough leaders have supported over 150 senior TV professionals to raise their profiles in just two short years.
“We have seen people go from Series Producer to Executives to Heads of Departments and even our first Director of Content.
“And as I say, every year – the quality of talent of this programme speaks to the abundance of talent of colour that already exists but is often underutilised within our industry.
“I am extremely proud of what the Breakthrough Leaders programme, with the generous support of Fremantle has managed to achieve so far.”
2023’s Breakthrough Leaders (which can be viewed in full here) include:
● Janine Thomas – is the Commissioning Editor in the Channel 4 documentaries team, focusing on talent-fronted docs. Alongside this, Thomas runs First Cut Strand, giving opportunities for first-time factual directors.
● Cassie Quarless – is a Producer Director with a background in documentaries. He recently directed a documentary for the BBC about the late Louis Vuitton designer Virgil Abloh. His first BFI-funded feature-lengthfilm ‘Generation Revolution’ was released in cinemas in the UK – he has also developed documentary feature projects about Stokley Carmichael, Malcolm Shabbazz, and the history of Black British Music.
● Kiki Yihui Wang- is an Assistant Producer currently making social content for BBC Earth as a digital producer, she has multiple AP credits across Documentary, Factual, and Factual Ent with BBC Studios, Pioneer Productions, and Lion TV.
● Faith Musembi – is a Producer Director based in Bristol. As one of the few Black women working in natural history programming, she is drawn to telling meaningful and masterful narratives. Her credits include Queens and Chasing the Rains.
Symeon Brown, Channel 4 News Correspondent and Commissioning Executive, comments: “I was drawn to Breakthrough Leaders by the programme’s honest assessment about the state of media representation and, in turn, the questions it asked of me: ‘What contribution can I make, what work do I want to do and ultimately who do I want to be?’
“It is easy to lose confidence in the possibilities of this industry. I appreciated the lack of pretense and renewed focus it has given me on what really matters.”
Additional details about the festival will be announced at a later date, creating heightened anticipation for this groundbreaking event.
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The involvement of African-heritage men and women as senior staff in ITV, may appear progressive; visionary and beneficial for His Majesty’s African, and African-Caribbean-heritage England’s Subjects.
However, the Voice’s long list of African-heritage senior men and women at ITV has produce little real fruit to justify any celebrations from England’s African-heritage men; women and youth, or Voice readers.
The demands of Left-wing, Marxist inspired, Political Correctness has resulted with the avalanche; especially in advertising, of African-dual Caucasian heritage models; with coffee-coloured skin, and a blend of Caucasian hair and facial.
Dual-African-heritage models dominate England’s leading high street fashion shops.
African, and Caribbean dual-heritage model and actors are placed in incongruous middle-class Caucasian settings.
It is so clear the ethnics are there to meet ITV’s Politically Correct “diversity” quota.
African-heritage Subject are only four percent of the English population.
However, African-heritage, and especially dual-heritage models now comprise over fifty percent presence on adverts.
Lastly, audio and television remain dominated by the BBC; and the BBC is still shockingly dominated by one specific racial and religious group, and an overtly Left-wing Politically Correct creed.
Whilst African-heritage people pepper the public and abstentious elements at the BBC.
The absent of a dedicated weekly BBC Radio Four hour-long broadcast for England’s African-heritage Subjects; who are without a senior BBC investigative reporter to authentically articulate for England’s African-heritage Subjects, and we are still without political and Parliamentary representation. For these reasons the continued absence of a BBC Radio Four programme is an unacceptable and damaging disparity.
This disparity that is ignored by England’s leading African, and African-Caribbean people with royal titles, peerages, and political office.
Voice readers must not celebrate “diversity, equality, and inclusion,” as the remedy for skin-colour discrimination, as endured daily by England’s African-heritage people.
Authentic and sincere African-heritage people must be supported by BBC Radio Four, and ITV to use our own political language, and a African-heritage political and historical creed, to correct, and address the skin-colour disparities which are still apart of England’s and Western Europe’s political; theological, financial and economic DNA.