Our Writers

John Dale

John worked as an actor and then became a Director at the Royal Court Theatre, London responsible for young writing. He joined the BBC as a kids’ writer/director and then ITV, developing successful television formats, including ‘No 73’ Saturday morning show, before going on to write and produce mainstream award-winning adult drama.

Patricia Hidalgo

Patricia Hidalgo is Director of Children’s & Education at the BBC. She is responsible for developing and implementing creative and editorial strategy for BBC Children’s services across all platforms, with a focus on the strategic future direction of media consumption and business models.

Professor Jeanette Steemers

Jeanette Steemers is Professor of Culture, Media and Creative Industries, and Vice Dean of Research  in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at King’s College London. She has published widely on distribution, public service broadcasting and the children’s media industry. Her work has been funded by the British Academy, the Leverhulme Trust and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Greg Childs

Greg Childs is Director of the Children's Media Foundation and worked for over 25 years at the BBC, mainly as a director, producer and executive producer of children’s programmes. He created the first Children’s BBC websites and, as Head of Children’s Digital, developed and launched the children’s channels, CBBC and CBeebies.

Tom Van Waveren

Tom van Waveren began his career in animation at Nelvana in 1996 as Director of its London office. In 1999, Tom moved to Copenhagen to head up Egmont Imagination as its President where he was involved in the production of over 100 hours of animation, including Paz, Rex the Runt, Little People and Hamilton Mattress, and the distribution of Lizzie McGuire. Tom started his own company Hoek, Line & Thinker in 2004 and merged his pipeline of projects with CAKE in 2006. Since that date, he has been responsible for scouting, development and the executive production of all CAKE content.

Jenny Buckland

Jenny is the CEO of the Australian Children’s Television Foundation (ACTF). She is a lawyer with extensive experience in the production, financing and international distribution of children’s television programs.

Anne Longfield OBE

Anne Longfield has spent the last three decades working to improve the life chances of children, particularly the most vulnerable. From March 2015 to February 2021, she was Children’s Commissioner for England and previously led a national children’s charity. Anne remains a passionate champion for children, influencing and shaping the national debate and policy agenda for children and their families.

Frank Cottrell-Boyce

Frank Cottrell-Boyce is a successful British screenwriter whose film credits include Welcome to Sarajevo, Hilary and Jackie and 24 Hour Party People. Millions, his debut chidlren's novel, won the 2004 Carnegie Medal and was shortlisted for the Guardian Children’s Fiction Award.

Anne Wood CBE

In 1984 Anne Wood founded Ragdoll Productions, whose work is loved by children around the world.  Since then, Ragdoll has produced more than 1,500 programmes aimed at the youngest viewers, including a number of award-winning shows, particularly the hugely successful 'Teletubbies' and 'In the Night Garden'.

Baroness Floella Benjamin DBE and Julie Elliott MP

Julie Elliott MP and Baroness Floella Benjamin DBE are Co-Chairs of the APPG for Children’s Media and the Arts. The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Children’s Media and the Arts was established in 2011 to provide greater awareness of the issues around children's media and arts.

Emerita Professor Máire Messenger Davies

Máire Messenger Davies is Emerita Professor of Media Studies at Ulster University, and a Visiting Professor at the University of South Wales. She has a BA in English from Trinity College Dublin and, after a journalistic career in local newspapers and national magazines, she obtained a PhD in psychology at the University of East London, studying how audiences learn from television.

Warren Nettleford

Warren Nettleford is an award-winning national TV journalist who’s tackled the biggest global news stories covering Europe, Asia and the United States. He’s worked for every major UK news broadcaster (BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5).

Lord David Puttnam

Lord David Puttnam is the Chair of Atticus Education, an online education company founded in 2012 that delivers audio-visual seminars to students all over the world. In addition to this, he is a member of the House of Lords where he pursues an active role in a variety of areas, from educational and environmental issues to digital skills.

Jackie Edwards

Jackie is Head of the BFI Young Audiences Content Fund, and is responsible for the successful implementation of this game-changing UK Government initiative to stimulate the provision of public service content for audiences of 0-18.

Nicky Cox MBE and Simona Karabyn

Nicky Cox is founder and editor of children’s newspaper, First News, reaching 2.6m+ readers a week in more than a third of UK schools. She is also CEO of Fresh Start Media, specialising in making programmes with young people for young people – like Sky TV’s FYI. Simona Karabyn joined Fresh Start Media in 2019, and has worked primarily as the co-Producer and Programme Editor of weekly Sky News and Sky kids news show, FYI, alongside Executive Producer, Chris Rogers. Prior to joining Fresh Start Media, Simona worked as a freelance Television Producer.

Dr Mai Elshehaly and Professor Mark Mon-Williams

Dr Mai Elshehaly is a Lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Bradford. Mai is the Director of the Digital Makers Programme (together with Dr Faisal Mushtaq from the University of Leeds), a cross-sector initiative that is building a scientific approach for the digital upskilling of children and young people in the City of Bradford, UK. Professor Mark Mon-Williams holds a Chair in Cognitive Psychology at the University of Leeds, is Professor of Psychology at the Bradford Institute of Health Research, and Professor of Vision Science at The Norwegian Centre for Vision.

Japhet Asher

Director, Polarity Reversal

Japhet is the director of Polarity Reversal Ltd, where he creates IP for a variety of platforms. He also consults with publishing, digital and other media companies to develop ideas, strategies and products. He started out as a writer and documentary maker, then went on to become a partner in the ground breaking animation studio Colossal Pictures, culminating in the TV series he created for MTV and the BBC, 'Liquid Television'.

Sir Phil Redmond

Sir Phil Redmond is a great advocate and ambassador for Liverpool and Merseyside. He was considered innovative throughout his television career at Mersey Television and created a number of ground breaking drama series including Grange Hill, Brookside and Hollyoaks.

Dr. Karl Rawstrone

Dr. Karl Rawstrone is a Senior Lecturer in Media Production and Deputy Head of the Department of Media Production at Bournemouth University. He completed his PhD with the University of the West of England in 2020. His thesis is entitled Negotiating Dependence: Independent Television Producers in England.

Michael Rosen

A former Children's Laureate and one of the best-known figures in the children’s book world, Michael Rosen is renowned for his work as a poet, performer, broadcaster and scriptwriter. As an author and by selecting other writers’ works for anthologies he has been involved with over 140 books. He lectures and teaches in universities on children’s literature, reading and writing.

Peter York and Emeritus Professor Patrick Barwise

Peter York is a ‘capitalist tool’ by background, as a market researcher (like Paddy Barwise a Patron of the Market Research Society) and management consultant. Patrick Barwise is emeritus professor of management and marketing at London Business School and an expert on marketing and media.

David Kleeman

Strategist, analyst, author, speaker, connector — David Kleeman has led the children’s media industry in developing sustainable, child-friendly practices for 35 years. He began this work as president of the American Centre for Children and Media and is now Senior Vice President of Global Trends for Dubit, a strategy/research consultancy and digital studio.

Dr Jane O’Connor

Reader in Childhood Studies, Birmingham City University

Dr Jane O’Connor is a Reader in Childhood Studies at Birmingham City University where she co-leads the Cultures in Education research group. She is the author of The Cultural Significance of the Child Star (Routledge, 2008) and co-editor of Childhood and Celebrity (Routledge, 2017).

Wincie Knight

Wincie Knight is VP of Global Inclusion Strategies at ViacomCBS Networks International (VCNI). Fiercely passionate about the notion of diversity being less about filling quotas and more about creating a sense of belonging. She works collaboratively with all of VIMN’s Employee Resource Groups in offices in London, Amsterdam, Berlin, Budapest, Madrid, Milan and Warsaw.

Ed Vaizey

Ed Vaizey (Lord Vaizey of Didcot) is a member of the House of Lords, appointed in 2020, and sits on the Communications and Media Committee. He was the Member of Parliament for Wantage between 2005 and 2019. He served as the UK Government Culture and Digital Minister from 2010-16, and is the longest-serving Minister in that role.

Timandra Harkness

Timandra Harkness writes and presents BBC Radio 4 documentaries, including Divided Nation and Five Knots, and series FutureProofing and Steelmanning. Regular Radio and TV appearances to discuss current affairs, especially issues around technology, include Newsnight, Any Questions, Politics Live and Free Thinking.

John Richmond

John Richmond has spent a lifetime working in education and television, both as a teacher and a Commissioning Editor for schools programming for Channel 4 television. He helped to set up the Children’s Television Trust International and was one of the organisers of the second ever global children’s media conference in London.

Dr Shelley Anne Galpin

Shelley Anne Galpin worked as a teacher in London for several years, before studying for her AHRC funded PhD at the University of York, where she researched the responses of teenage audiences to the period drama genre. This work will be published in her forthcoming book Teenage Audiences and British Period Drama.