Speakers joining us at CCC 2026

‍Alison leads North East Screen, the region’s screen industries development agency, driving economic growth and supporting the sustainable expansion of film and television production across the North East.

Alison has over 25 years’ experience in the cultural and creative industries, from providing marketing leadership at the Centre for Life to being instrumental in the planning and development of Seven Stories, the National Centre for Children’s Books. Her passion is to support the sustainable growth of the creative industry in North East England.

Recent achievements include securing investment of £58 million through a BBC partnership and establishing the North East Screen Industry Partnership (NESIP), involving 3 Combined and 12 Local Authorities. NESIP aims to double the region’s share of UK film and TV production, generating an economic impact of £88m annually. Alison received a Royal Television Society award for Outstanding Contribution to the Screen industry in 2022. 

Andrea Arnold began her career with notable short films like Milk, Dog, and Wasp, the latter earning her an Academy Award in 2005. Her debut feature film Red Road won the BAFTA Award for Outstanding Debut in 2006 as well as five BAFTAs at the BAFTA Scotland Awards ceremony, including Best Director and Best Screenplay. In 2010, her critically acclaimed film Fish Tank won a BAFTA for Outstanding British Film. Red Road, Fish Tank and American Honey all competed at Cannes Film Festival and subsequently won the Jury Prize in 2006, 2009 and 2016. In 2022, her documentary Cow was nominated for a BAFTA and received several awards, including the Green Warsaw Award for Best Ecology Themed Documentary. She has also directed episodes for television series Transparent, I Love Dick, and the second season of Big Little Lies. In 2024 Bird was nominated for a Palme d'Or and a BAFTA for Outstanding British Film. The same year Andrea was awarded the Carrosse d’Or award at Cannes.

Angelo Abela is Joint Head of Scripted, Kids & Family at Lime Pictures. He executive produced last year's award-winning Netflix animation Wolf King and directed CBBC’s Girl Troop vs Aliens, which dropped in Spring.

In 2026, he has expanded into vertical drama, executive producing and directing two upcoming micro-dramas, as Lime enters the genre.

He joined Lime in 2011 as Lead Director and showrunner on BAFTA-nominated House of Anubis for Nickelodeon later developing and produced Free Rein, winning an Emmy, and was Emmy-nominated for directing both Free Rein and Zero Chill. He has also co-executive produced Hollyoaks.

Angelo began as an actor and comedy performer before building a writing and directing career across comedy, drama, entertainment, and children’s television.

Asif Kapadia, director of KENNY DALGLISH, is an Academy Award-winning director, screenwriter, and producer, also recognised with four BAFTA Awards, a Grammy Award, and a European Film Award. He is considered one of the most influential filmmakers of his generation, best known for his acclaimed trilogy AMY, SENNA, and DIEGO MARADONA. Kapadia’s most recent film, 2073, had its world premiere at the 2024 Venice Film Festival, starring Samantha Morton. 2073 is a hard hitting, epic, science-true-fiction thriller which pushed the documentary boundaries by mixing archive, nonfiction and drama, set in a dystopian near-future. The film uses fragments of the past to tell a story of what may be to come in the future, or what may already be our present. 2073 had been the No 1 feature film on HBO MAX in the US.

As Chief Executive of Screen Yorkshire, Caroline champions the film, TV and wider screen industries in Yorkshire and the Humber and provides leadership to a talented team of industry experts who deliver skills and talent development, production support and content investment.

Caroline’s 25-year career within the screen industries has evolved from running her first production company with acclaimed music video director Dawn Shadforth to her previous role as Head of Creative at Screen Yorkshire. Along this journey she has spent time as Talent Development Executive for Scottish Film Talent Network, Head of Film at Creative England, Head of Creative Development at Warp X, managed the UK Film Council’s nationwide short film programme through her company Lifesize Pictures and spent a year as Director of the Sheffield International Documentary Festival.

Claire McColgan CBE is a highly respected cultural leader with over 30 years’ experience delivering transformational culture-led regeneration across local and national government. As Director of Culture, Visitor Economy and Major Events for Liverpool and the wider region, she has produced world-class, award-winning events including Liverpool 2008, Eurovision 2023, and the UK COVID-19 reopening programme, while also leading the bids for and delivering, amongst others  UNESCO City of Music and the UN Accelerator City Programme.

She is an expert in community engagement and invented the groundbreaking creative communities programme, cited as the reason for Liverpool’s European Capital of Culture win. This approach has been emulated internationally.

A sought-after international advisor and speaker, Claire currently serves as Deputy Chair of the UK City of Culture programme, a Non-Executive Director at Carnegie UK and Visit Isle of Man, and has been recognised with an MBE, CBE, and honorary awards from LJMU and Edge Hill University for her outstanding service to culture and the City of Liverpool.

Award winning actor, Dylan Thomas Smith is best known for his portrayal of Reece Duffy in ITV’s G’WED. The role has earned him outstanding reviews, with Russell T Davies calling him, ‘An absolute star...,” a BAFTA nomination and the award for ‘Best Breakthrough Performance in a Comedy’ at The Edinburgh TV Awards. The show was also nominated for a BAFTA. Dylan recently finished filming season 3 which will be out in June and can also be seen in Keyside’s upcoming music video Lemon and Lime. Dylan currently has two projects in development.

Emma Loach is the BBC's Interim Head of Documentary Commissioning, responsible for all  documentary output across the BBC's channels. 

Recent credits include The Mother of All Cons; Atomic People; Backlash: The Murder of  George Floyd; Forensics; Sarah Everard: The Search for Justice; The Search for Nicola Bulley;  Rose Ayling-Ellis: Old Hands, New Tricks; The Real Mo Farah; Parole; The Met; Christine  McGuinness: Unmasking My Autism; Louis Theroux's Forbidden America; Gods of Snooker; and Black Power. 

Before joining the BBC, Emma worked as an executive producer across a diverse range of  series and singles. She was instrumental in originating and delivering the Ambulance brand  for BBC One and The Trial for Channel 4.

Gemma stars as Mia Louise in ITV comedy G’WED, for which she was nominated for Best Performance in a Comedy at the Northwest RTS Awards in 2025.  Gemma recently reprised her role for the second series of BBC drama This City Is Ours and completed filming The Cage for BBC1.

Harjeet Chhokar is a Sr. Unscripted Creative Executive at Amazon MGM Studios, where he works across the factual slate and on shows such as Clarkson's Farm, The Grand Tour, Kaleb Down Under and the award winning sports documentaries and true crime slate. Prior to joining Amazon MGM Studios, Harjeet was a Commissioning Editor in the Channel 4 Factual department, and commissioned a number of factual shows, including Murder Island, Sex Actually with Alice Levine and 999: On the Frontline. Before entering the world of commissioning, Harjeet worked in unscripted production for over 17 years; starting his career as a BBC Production Trainee and working his way up to Series Producer.

Harjeet is a passionate advocate for the powerful impact television can have on viewers' lives and the cultural fabric of the country; he is committed to mentoring and supporting junior members of the industry. He is currently a Trustee at the Grierson Trust and The TV Foundation, and was the Advisory Chair of the 2024 Edinburgh TV Festival.

Helen Nightingale is Head of Factual and Factual Entertainment Commissioning at UKTV, where she has played a key role in shaping the unscripted strategy across U&Dave, U&W, U&Yesterday and U&Gold. Since joining in 2015, her commissions have included titles such as Emma Willis: Delivering Babies, Gemma and Gorka: Life Behind The Lens, and more recently, Guy Martin Proper Jobs and the award-winning Pete Wicks for Dogs’ Sake. Helen previously held senior roles at Gogglebox Entertainment and IWC Media.

Hilary Rosen is Director of Commissioning at UKTV, where she leads a team responsible for a growing slate of original scripted and unscripted programming. Her recent commissions include new drama series Bergerac, Bookish and The Marlow Murder Club, alongside unscripted titles such as Pete Wicks: For Dogs’ Sake, Will & Ralf Should Know Better and Guy Martin: Proper Jobs. She was also the original commissioner of Dave’s BAFTA‑winning Taskmaster.

Hilary began her career in BBC News & Current Affairs on Panorama, later moving into the independent sector with senior roles at Lion Television before becoming Creative Director at Silver River Productions.

She is deputy chair of the BAFTA Board of Trustees and will succeed the chair in autumn 2026. Hilary supports mental health and inclusion across the industry, serving on the working group for the Film and TV Charity’s Mentally Healthy Productions initiative, and is a mentor of mid-career women.

‍Holly Graham is Chief Commercial and Strategy Officer at Little Dot Studios, working to shape the company’s long-term growth strategy while overseeing the studio function and all client relationships across Entertainment, Sport and Consumer Brands. One of Little Dot Studios’ earliest employees, Holly joined the business in 2013 and has held several senior roles across audience growth, client services and international expansion. In 2018 she relocated to Los Angeles to launch and lead Little Dot Studios US as Managing Director, establishing the company’s American operations and securing key partnerships with Warner Bros., Disney and NBCUniversal while driving significant growth. Holly returned to the London headquarters in 2020 as Chief Business Officer, was promoted to Chief Commercial Officer in 2024, and now leads both commercial strategy and global partnerships across the group.

Jade Beason swapped her corporate marketing career for life as a full-time creator and multi-business entrepreneur - and hasn’t looked back. After eight years in marketing, she launched her YouTube channel and turned it into a six-figure business within months.

Today, Jade runs multiple ventures: The Creator Project, a digital community helping creators turn passion into profit, and Social People, a social media marketing agency blending cultural insight with data to make content that actually works.

Her work has attracted an audience of over 450,000 creators and entrepreneurs, and she’s hosted events for global giants like Google, Apple, and Meta. Whether she’s on stage, online, or strategising behind the scenes, Jade’s mission is simple: to show creators and brands how they can make social media their superpower & earn an income!

Liverpool-born Jimmy McGovern has a formidable reputation for writing powerful dramas for the stage and screen, often based on real events or social issues. Jimmy’s writing credits read like a list of classic television. Having honed his skills working on Brookside, his major breakthroughs came with Cracker, Hillsborough and Time. Jimmy received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Royal Television Society in March 2018.

Jimmy was one of the founders of Hat Trick Productions in 1986 and since then has seen it grow into one of the country’s leading producers of comedy, drama and entertainment, regularly bringing to the screen distinctive and popular series. In the US Hat Trick launched ‘Whose Line Is It Anyway’ in 1997 which ran on ABC for seven years and was the very first British series to be recreated for American network television by a British producer. In 1999 he received the BAFTA Award for Outstanding Creative Contribution to Television.

Jimmy is a Fellow of the Royal Television Society and recently 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.

John Whittle is Managing Director of Lime Pictures and Wise Owl Films, having been promoted to the role in 2024 after joining the company as Finance Director in 2016. He leads the businesses’ strategic vision, working closely with the creative and production leadership across scripted, kids & family, animation and premium factual.

2025 marked Hollyoaks’ 30th anniversary as Channel 4’s flagship soap with a nostalgic return to Brookside Close.   Lime also launched its on-site L16 Studios in Liverpool which housed part of the production for CBBC's Girl Troops vs Aliens.  Epic fantasy animation Wolf King also landed on Netflix in 2025 to critical acclaim.

Across Wise Owl Films, John has overseen continued success including the Our Farm Next Door franchise with Amanda Owen and the BBC Two music documentary strand When...Came to Britain.

Before joining Lime, John held senior international finance roles at NBCUniversal across its theatrical and home entertainment divisions.

Jonny set up the Hat Trick Lab in 2023, establishing a team with a focus on cross-medium development and a goal to explore how emerging technologies can be used to tell stories. Working alongside all the fantastic talent at Hat Trick, the team is now developing projects across games, animation, live and digital – looking in particular at the areas where boundaries between these mediums are blurring. Jonny has a masters in Creative Business from the National Film and Television School and leads the new NFTS AI Protocols and Practices for Film and TV course.

Kevin Sampson is an award-winning screenwriter (ANNE, THE HUNT FOR RAOUL MOAT), film producer (GIANT, AWAYDAYS) and novelist (THE KILLING POOL, STARS ARE STARS) based in Merseyside, UK.

Laurence Clark is a screenwriter, playwright and award‑winning comedian whose work spans television, theatre and radio. He won the UKTV Triforce Writerslam, leading to his comedy pilot Perfect being broadcast on Dave in 2022. His CBBC screenwriting credits include Odd Squad, Andy and the Band and the sci‑fi series Gifted, for which he adapted Episode 3 and wrote Episode 8. His new play Cured tours nationally in May - June 2026 following support from Unlimited and the National Theatre’s Generate programme.

Laurence is also in demand as a Disability Editorial Advisor, contributing to Half Man (BBC/HBO), Mandy S4 (BBC), Pushers (Merman/Channel 4) and The Responder S2 (BBC). He chaired the BAFTA‑winning organisation TripleC DANC and nowadays works for them. He is a core group member and the Access Roles project co-lead for the TV Access Project, a coalition driving improved access and inclusion across the UK screen industries.

Golden Path Productions was founded by BAFTA award-winning producer Mario Stylianides. Prior to this he was Head of Comedy at Hat Trick Productions. During his time there he enjoyed enormous success. He developed, sold and Executive Produced the BAFTA award-winning FONEJACKER, FACEJACKER and THE ARMSTRONG AND MILLER SHOW, BAFTA nominated THE WORST WEEK OF MY LIFE , the British Comedy Award winning comedy drama DROP DEAD GORGEOUS and Golden Rose winning sitcom SPY. He was then headhunted by NBC Universal and tasked with setting up a comedy label – Lucky Giant – for the International arm of the business. While he was there he developed and Executive Produced Christopher Guest’s FAMILY TREE for HBO and BBC2 and comedy drama QUACKS for BBC2. After four years running Lucky Giant he decided to form his own production company Golden Path Productions. Golden Path specialises in scripted comedy and drama.

Based in Manchester and originally from Taiwan, Michelle Lin is a strategic leader specialising in the intersection of traditional media and the digital-first ecosystem. As K7 Media’s Director of Digital Strategy, she translates complex shifts across streaming, social platforms, AI, and creator-led content into commercially actionable insights.

With nearly nine years of international experience in Asian television, Michelle now oversees K7’s digital editorial direction, including high-level reporting on branded entertainment, microdramas, and global platform trends. She acts as a vital bridge, helping clients navigate the fast-moving digital landscape through data-informed research and expert consultation.

Mobeen has produced and presented across BBC flagship platforms for more than 20 years and is a BAFTA, Grierson, Amnesty International, Broadcast and Royal Television Society award winner.

He has created longform podcast series for BBC Sounds, Spotify and Audible including: Fatwa; Hometown: A Killing; Lives Less Ordinary; The Kanye Story and Catching the Kingpins, which featured on BBC Sounds’ ‘Best of 2024’ list. Mobeen also hosts the BBC World Service strand, Outlook.

Mobeen has produced and presented numerous narrative television documentaries and multi-part series across BBC One, BBC Two and BBC Three including: Predator: The Secret Scandal of J-Pop; Secrets of an ISIS Smartphone; The Battle for Britney: Fans, Cash and a Conservatorship; Hometown: A Killing; A Black and White Killing: The Case That Shook America and The Satanic Verses: 30 Years On, as well as multiple editions of flagship current affairs series Panorama.

In recent years he has also made programmes with BBC Studios, Vice Studios, Expectation, Mentorn and ITN Productions. Mobeen is a regular host on BBC 5Live and the BBC World Service.

As Head of Comedy at ITV, Nana has rejuvenated ITV Comedy with award-winning and award-worthy shows for ITV and ITVX, including Changing Ends, G'wed, The Dry, Transaction, Piglets, Deep Fake Neighbour Wars, Count Abdulla, and Significant Other. Prior to joining ITV, she was Head of Comedy at Talkback Thames and Head of Development at Retort, where she executive produced the award-winning Chewing Gum Series 1 & 2. Nana is a BAFTA, RTS, and Broadcast award-winning comedy executive producer.

Nicola Shindler OBE is a prolific, multi award-winning British television producer, and CEO of Quay Street Productions, based in Manchester.   

With over 25 years' experience in television, Nicola has produced some of the UK’s most successful and award-winning dramas, including Years and Years, Happy Valley, Queer As Folk, Fool Me Once, The Stolen Girl, The Guest, After The Flood and Run Away.  Forthcoming series include The Blame starring Michelle Keegan and Douglas Booth for ITV and Tip Toe written by Russell T Davies starring Alan Cumming and David Morrissey for Channel 4.

Renowned for her relationships with writers, Nicola has worked with an array of the UK’s most prolific and exciting writing talent including Russell T Davies, Sally Wainwright, Lenny Henry, Paul Abbott, Dan Sefton, Tony Marchant, Amelia Bullmore, Danny Brocklehurst, Matt Greenhalgh and Sarah Solemani, on series starring some of the world’s leading on-screen names. 

PJ Smith was born in North Liverpool. Just another one of the kids growing up on Newby Street.

He followed a path, lost his footing. His fall was broken by the net of creativity. Writing, just getting it all out of your head and onto the page. Roy was born.

The fella least likely first walked onto a stage four years ago and took the mic. He immediately grabbed and held attentions and led them through the streets of his imagination introducing his weird and wonderful characters.

Roy wanders his world and observes. He watches and recounts tales of ordinary and extraordinary inner-city madness. Where good snarls at evil and evil snarls right back. It’s dark, it’s sharp, it’s heartwarming and it’s funny. Ladies and gentlemen, the stories you are about to hear are true. Only the names have been changed to provoke the guilty.

Rebecca Hodgson is the Executive Producer of This City is Ours. She joined Left Bank Pictures in September 2023, where her credits as EP also include The Lady for ITV and Britbox and Dear England for BBC1.

Rebecca started her career as a journalist at Screen International. She is an award-winning producer with recent credits including ARCHIE for Etta and ITVX, RTS award winning SHERWOOD for House and BBC1, THE IRREGULARS for Drama Republic and Netflix and DEEP WATER for Kudos and ITV. Earlier credits include VINCENT, WIRED and THE GIRLS WHO CAME TO STAY, STOLEN, WE'LL TAKE MANHATTAN, THE ROAD TO CORONATION STREET, BAFTA winner for Best Single Drama, GOOD COP, RTS winner for Best Drama Series, and FREE REIN for Netflix, which won two Emmys.

Rob Page is an accomplished leader in the UK’s creative production sector and currently Managing Director of Space Studios Manchester, The Sharp Project, Arbeta and the Film Office for Manchester City Council, Screen Manchester.

With a strong background in finance and commercial management, he has played a central role in transforming Manchester into a major centre for high-end TV, film and commercial production. Under his leadership these assets and services now collectively deliver £100M+ of annual production spend for national and international clients including Netflix, Amazon, NBC Universal, Sony, BBC and ITV. 

Screen Manchester is also a strategic partner alongside Screen Yorkshire, The Liverpool Film Office and North East Screen in Screen Alliance North. This Alliance is the largest of the BFI Skills Clusters and benefits from £2.3M of funding to tackle screen skills shortages and improve access to quality training provision for diverse talent and communities in the North.

Stephen Butchard is an award-winning screenwriter and producer, born in Liverpool. Before writing full time, he trained as an engineer and spent a year in Beijing as a British Government secondee, managing upgrades to the city’s underground rail network.

He began writing for theatre and radio before winning the Dennis Potter Award in 1997 for his first screenplay Soft Sand, Blue Sea. His early TV work includes Little Bird and Lie With Me for Granada.

Stephen has created and written numerous acclaimed dramas, including A&E, Vincent, and the BAFTA-nominated House of Saddam for BBC/HBO. His mini-series Five Daughters won Best Drama at the RTS Awards, with Stephen receiving both the RTS and BAFTA for Best Writer.

His credits also include Good Cop, The Child in Time, The Last Kingdom, Baghdad Central, The Good Mothers (Berlinale Series Award), Shardlake, and This City Is Ours, now in its second series for BBC One.

Los Angeles-based Stuart Ford is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of AGC Studios and one of the most experienced and prolific independent film and television producers, financiers and entrepreneurs in the global entertainment industry. UK born and Oxford University educated, Ford is a former entertainment attorney and Miramax Films senior studio executive who in 2007 founded IM Global. Over the following decade, he built IM Global into one of the industry’s leading independent production, financing and international sales platforms with additional talent management and PR businesses across North America, Southeast Asia, India, Latin America and Europe.

In 2018, Ford launched the so-called “super-indie” AGC Studios, an independent content studio with major backing from Silicon Valley, Abu Dhabi and Latin America that develops, finances, produces and sells a diverse slate of feature films and scripted, unscripted and factual television. Since its inception, AGC has been involved in over 50 major productions. Ford’s AGC Television label has quickly become a major player in high-end scripted content, including the recent epic series “Those About to Die,” with a first-season budget of $165 million - one of the largest independently financed TV productions in history.

As a producer and financier Ford has worked with a huge array of leading directors such as Martin Scorsese, Gary Ross, Mel Gibson, Ron Howard, Doug Liman, Neil Burger, James Wan, Scott Derrickson, Roland Emmerich, Tom Ford and Richard Linklater. Across his career, he has produced or executive produced nearly eighty films and television shows and has assembled in excess of $2 billion in independent production financing from North America, India, China, Latin America and the Middle East.

Ford received Variety’s Achievement in International Film Award in 2015 and was named one of The Guardian’s 50 Most Influential People in Global Cinema. In 2023, he was honored at the Cannes Film Festival with Variety’s “Billion Dollar Producer” award. He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Television Academy, and BAFTA, and has been profiled in the Variety 500 in 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024.

Tony Schumacher had one dream when he was a kid, and that was to be a writer. Instead of becoming a writer he bombed out of school aged 16 with no qualifications and a sigh of relief.

He worked his way around the world as a roofer, a jeweller, a bouncer, a barman, a binman, and on-board cruise ships selling underpants, before eventually returning to Liverpool to become a response policeman dealing with 999 jobs morning, noon and nights.

Eleven years later, after a breakdown and a period of homelessness, he found himself driving a taxi around the night-time streets of Liverpool. That was when he remembered his dream and finally started to write.

His first three novels were published by HarperCollins in the USA, and since then he has been mentored by Jimmy McGovern as part of the ScreenSkills High End TV Writers Bursary Scheme (2018) and been invited to join the BBC Writersroom Northern Voices Scheme. The Responder series and The Cage are his creations.

Wayne Garvie is President of International Production at Sony Pictures Television (SPT) and oversees SPT’s global network of production companies outside the US, covering Europe, Latin America and Australia. The 14 wholly-owned or joint venture production companies within the business deliver both original and formatted content for local broadcasters in their markets, and create nearly 1,500 hours of entertainment around the world each year. He is also responsible for driving creative development within international production, steering the business to develop locally created properties into global formats and fostering co-developments across the group.

Garvie joined SPT in June 2012 and reports to Keith Le Goy, Chairman, Sony Pictures Television. He joined SPT from All3MEDIA, where he was Managing Director, International Production with special responsibility for the company's growth in the US. Previously, Garvie was Managing Director for Content & Production at BBC Worldwide, responsible for establishing the corporation's global network of production companies and overseeing its international formats business. Prior to that role, he was Head of Entertainment Group for the BBC, where his teams were behind shows like Strictly Come Dancing and Dragons’ Den. Garvie also held senior positions in UK broadcasting, including Director of Broadcasting for Granada.

Garvie holds a First Class Honours degree and Honorary DLitt from the University of Kent and is both a PhD in Economic History and Honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of Sheffield.