ITV has hired two creative diversity partners to help deliver its 12-month acceleration plan to improve representation across the broadcaster.
Sam Tatlow has managed training and events for diverse talent at ThinkBigger! and has also worked on Pact’s Indie Diversity Scheme and Channel 4’s production training scheme and trained disabled presenters and reporters for Channel 4’s groundbreaking coverage of the 2012 Paralympic Games in London.
She has also worked as a production co-ordinator on scripted shows such as E4’s Misfits and The Inbetweeners and Sky’s Mad Dogs.
Nahrein Kemp, meanwhile, established Film Network’s equal access network and created and funded diverse leadership programme Breaking the Glass Ceiling and created the ScreenSkills-backed Return to Work Scheme.
The pair will work across commissioning at ITV Studios and the wider ITV business areas and support independent producers to improve diversity, and will report to ITV group director of diversity and inclusion Ade Rawcliffe.
Their appointments follow the launch earlier this year of ITV’s diversity acceleration scheme, which aims to create a more inclusive culture, improve diversity at all levels of the broadcaster’s workforce, offer better diversity in career progression in TV production and ensure that commissions better reflect contemporary British life.
Tatlow and Kemp will oversee and drive ITV’s Step Up 60 initiative, which aims to provide the chance for at least 60 people to step up and secure their first ITV senior editorial and production roles over the next year - including directing, writing or producing episodes of ITV’s new and returning drama, factual and entertainment shows.
ITV managing director of media and entertainment Kevin Lygo this week unveiled guidelines for producers on how the scheme will work. More details can be found here
