Channel 4 head of creative diversity Babita Bahal, one of the architects of the broadcaster’s ‘Black to Front’ initiative, is leaving to take up a similar role at Fremantle.
Bahal, who joined C4 in January 2020, has been named group head of diversity, equity and inclusion at the media group, a newly-created global role in which she will report to group HR director Nicky Gray.
As well as helping to steer Black To Front, a day of new and existing shows almost exclusively made and fronted by black people, alongside commissioners Vivienne Molokwu and Shaminder Nahal, project co-ordinator Melissa Cousins and director of commissioning operations Emma Hardy, Bahal’s C4 remit included the Paralympics and its Indie Accelerator programme.
In April this year, she launched ‘progression placements’ to offer training and career support to promising diverse individuals employed on C4 shows and outlined plans to work with C4 genre heads to fund improvements to on- and off-screen diversity.
Prior to C4, Bahal was diversity and inclusion lead for BBC Content, where she was tasked with finding and nurturing talent from under-represented backgrounds.
Fremantle’s recent diversity efforts include the Breakthrough Leaders initiative, a TV Collective-led scheme providing mentorship and leadership support to 51 middle-to-senior level BAME professionals.
