The Television Committee is responsible for advising on the content and presentation of the Virgin Media British Academy Television Awards and the British Academy Television Craft Awards; considering categories, chairing juries, providing key editorial advice and recommending Gift of Council awards; and is involved in producing membership events throughout the year. The credits of the Television Committee include some of the very best in British television.
Sara Putt (Chair)
For over 30 years Sara has run Sara Putt Associates, an agency for freelance technicians and production personnel based at Shepperton Studios. The company represents some of the finest freelancers both in the UK and internationally, working in all areas of film and TV.
Sara Putt Associates also runs a unique in-house Trainee and Foundation Scheme supporting the next generation of freelance talent including those entrants from less traditional backgrounds.
Sara is Deputy Chair of BAFTA, Chair of The BAFTA TV Committee. She also sits on the boards of the British Film Commission, The Film & TV Charity and WFTV.
With a background in production Sara has also produced many short films for and with her clients, including the BAFTA Nominated TATTOO. She completed her Business Growth Programme at Cranfield School of Management in 2008 and was awarded her Graduate Diploma of Law at the University of Law in 2015.
Nicky Sargent (Deputy Chair)
Biography to follow
Emma Butt
Emma Butt is a Freelance Dubbing Mixer, Dialogue and SFX Editor and ADR recordist with over 14 years experience in post-production sound. She began her career in Dublin working within a facility where she was nominated for an IFTA for "Best Sound for documentary” for 'My Fathers War' and again, for animated series '”Punky” which was the first animation to feature a main character and actress with Down Syndrome. She has been working in the UK industry for over 7 years, first as staff but then deciding to become freelance. She works across multiple genres from documentaries (both TV and feature), Drama, entertainment shows, short form commercials, and animations.
In her spare time she is a mentor, helping to support the next generation of filmmakers and creative talent. She is an advocate for diversity in Film and TV, and recently completed a report on "Diversity in Post Production Sound'' through The Sir Lenny Henry Center for Media Diversity" which highlighted the lack of diversity and offered solutions as to how this can be changed and improved. She has worked as a consultant with Audible UK on their “Off Mic” workshops which aim to improve diversity and inclusion across craft and technical teams on audiobooks. When she’s not trying to improve her circus skills (a bruise inducing hobby), she can be found on twitter (@emmabuttsound)
Becky Cadman
Biography to follow
Christine Healy
Christine is COO of Watford & Essex, a UK Scripted HETV production company, where she oversees the commercial, operational & production side of the business. Prior to this, she was Head of Production at New Pictures since 2016. Her list of credits there includes highly acclaimed productions for many UK and International broadcasters including ‘The Spanish Princess’, ‘Des’, ‘The Deceived’, ‘Cobra’, ‘White House Farm’, ‘Catherine the Great’, ‘The Innocents’, ‘Requiem’ and ‘Rellik’.
Prior to New Pictures, Christine worked as a production consultant within the BBC Drama Department, overseeing programmes such as ‘Our Girl’, ‘Silent Witness’, ‘Red Water’ and ‘Undercover’. She has also had a successful career as a freelance line producer in high-end TV, working on many productions including ‘Doctor Foster’, ‘Indian Summers’, ‘Line of Duty’, ‘Tommy Cooper’ and ‘The White Queen’.
Christine chairs ScreenSkills’ High-end TV Skills Council and sits on ScreenSkills’ Board. As Chair, she is able to help identify skills gaps current and future within HETV and work with the team at ScreenSkills, industry leaders, trade bodies, agencies, guilds, broadcasters and others, to open doors to people from all backgrounds into HETV and then help them progress their careers within the industry through training opportunities.
Dan Isaacs
In his role as COO in London, Dan oversees all the production, finance, commercial, legal and operational bits of SISTER, a UK / LA based independent scripted production studio. Recent productions include: Gangs of London (SKY/AMC), Giri / Haji (Netflix/BBC), Chernobyl (HBO/SKY), The Split (BBC/Sundance). Upcoming projects include: The Power (Amazon), This is Going to Hurt (BBC/AMC) and Landscapers (HBO/SKY).
Prior to joining SISTER 6 years ago, Dan spent 13 years at production company Kudos as its Managing Director, COO and then latterly as CEO.
Beryl Richards
Beryl directs Film, TV drama and comedy. In TV, as lead director, she’s helped create many popular UK teens and kids series, for which she has been awarded 5 BAFTA’s, and 3 Int. EMMY nominations, most recently in 2018, best kids drama for Joe All Alone; and in 2019 an Int Emmy nomination for comedy Secret Life of Boys.
Beryl’s current feature documentary, Hello Stranger, funded by the BFI and Northern Ireland Screen, is based on 22 years of her own home movies. Beryl’s short films have been shown in 60 international festivals. Her feature script Runaway won the VFF screenwriting prize at the Berlinale. Her play Diamond, developed by BBC4 Arts, ran at the 2018 Edinburgh fringe.
Beryl has exec produced 180 kids short films for the European Broadcasting Union working with writers and directors in 38 countries, many films appear in international film festivals; two have recently won a BAFTA for the BBC and S4C.
Beryl chaired the board of Directors UK from 2015-17. She helped found and also chaired the DUK’s Gender Equality Group, which has led campaigning for better representation of women directors in the UK and worldwide. She won the 2016 Women in Film/ITV Achievement of the Year award for this work. She has been an elected member of Bafta's TV committee since 2017. She is a Bafta mentor and also mentors film/screenwriting students with autism and ADHD.
Beryl has British and Irish nationality. She is based in London and in Killyleagh, Northern Ireland where she has directed all her recent TV work and set up production companies Strangford Pictures and Derryboye Films.
Hilary Rosen
Hilary Rosen is Director of Commissioning at UKTV. She has commissioned and executive produced award-winning shows for UKTV including, BAFTA-winning Taskmaster for Dave, W’s longest running original series, Inside the Ambulance, Stacey Dooley Sleeps Over, and The Architecture the Railways Built, one of the most popular series on Yesterday.
Prior to joining UKTV, Hilary was creative director at Silver River, devising formats including The Town That Never Retired (BBC 1) and overseeing Inside Gatwick (Sky 1).
Her career has also encompassed ten years as a senior executive producer at Lion Television overseeing a raft of popular factual shows and documentaries, and a decade in BBC News and Current Affairs. Hilary has also acted as a consultant for BBC Academy, training the factual development teams.
Claire Zolkwer
Claire Zolkwer is MD of Thunderclap Media, a company which specialises in content which puts a smile on viewer’s faces. Previously, she served nearly a decade as a commissioning editor at ITV where she commissioned Celebrity Juice, TOWIE, Plebs, Off Their Rockers and You’re Back In The Room amongst many others. Before her commissioning stint she was a jobbing producer working on the first incarnations of many of the most successful reality shows including Pop Idol, I’m A Celebrity and Dancing On Ice.
She moved from Glasgow in 1991 with a dream to make it in the television industry and began her career as a runner on Class Action, a C4 current affairs series for teachers and parents. It went out on a Friday night at 8pm and it didn’t get recommissioned because it didn’t quite reach the required 6m viewers! Television has certainly changed since then.
Claire has continued to create original content throughout her career and aims keep up this tradition at Thunderclap.
Ade Rawcliffe
Director of Creative Diversity, ITV
Ade Rawcliffe is Group Director of Diversity and Inclusion at ITV, and is a member of the Management Board. She has responsibility for all diversity and inclusion related matters across the Group, including leading, developing and growing ITV’s Diversity & Inclusion strategy on and off screen.
Prior to that, Ade led the Creative Diversity team at Channel 4 and spearheaded the delivery of the broadcaster’s 360° Diversity Charter. She oversaw the creation of C4’s Commissioning Diversity Guidelines and developed programmes through diverse funding vehicle the Alpha Fund.
Rawcliffe was also part of the team responsible for C4’s coverage of Rio 2016 Paralympics and London 2012 Paralympics, which broke records for employing disabled presenters and production staff.
Ade also worked in the Features Commissioning team at C4 and as Television Producer at the BBC, ITV and in the independent sector working on shows including: Big Brother, The Big Breakfast and This Morning. She is a Chair of BAFTA’s Learning, Inclusion and Talent Committee, a Board Member of Women in Film & Television (WFTV), Founding Board Member of Times UP UK and a Trustee of the National Trust.Ade Rawcliffe is Group Director of Diversity and Inclusion at ITV, and is a member of the Management Board. She has responsibility for all diversity and inclusion related matters across the Group, including leading, developing and growing ITV’s Diversity & Inclusion strategy on and off screen.
Co-opted Members
Pete Andrews - biography to follow
Paul Gilbert
Paul is a Commissioning Editor for Sky Drama. He is Executive Producer on a raft of shows including Tin Star, Intergalactic, Bulletproof, Strike Back, and the up-coming thrillers, The Fear Index & Extinction. Before that he produced the BBC/Masterpiece series, Press, for Lookout Point and series 2 of Humans for Kudos, Channel 4 & AMC.
He was previously Head of Drama Development at Big Talk Productions where he oversaw E4 comedy-drama Youngers and the BBC1 family drama Our Zoo.
For many years he was an in-house Development Producer and Script Editor at BBC Drama Production and BBC Drama Northern Ireland, driving a raft of original series, serials and singles, including One Child, The Paradise, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Money, The Interceptor, The Last Days of Lehman Brothers and Messiah.
Rajiv Nathwani
Rajiv Nathwani is the Director of Marketing for Netflix UK, Ireland & Israel. He joined the company in 2015 as one of the founding members of the London office. Rajiv and his team are responsible for defining Netflix’s global marketing and social media approach for some of the world’s most-loved scripted, documentary and unscripted TV shows including The Crown, Sex Education, Black Mirror, F1: Drive To Survive, Too Hot To Handle & Top Boy.
Prior to joining Netflix, Rajiv spent 5 years at the BBC where he was Head of Social Media for BBC Television, and before that an Assistant Producer for EastEnders.
Rajiv served as a member of the inaugural BAFTA Youth Board (2012-2014) and the Learning and New Talent Committee (2015-2017). He has also previously sat on the board for The Birmingham Repertory Theatre (2012-2016) and London International Festival of Theatre (2013-2016).
Carl Callam - Biography to follow
Denise Seneviratne - biography to follow
Committee Advisors
Adeel Amini
Adeel Amini is a freelance Senior Producer in Entertainment, and has worked on shows such as Catchphrase, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, Blind Date, 8 out of 10 Cats Does Countdown, and many more. He is also the founder of pan-industry working group Coalition For Change.
In 2018 Adeel formed what is now known as The TV Mindset, a mental health support group for freelancers based on his own experiences in the industry (and having to temporarily leave it). While initially a peer-support group, the TV Mindset has evolved into a platform for freelancers to share their issues while also advocating for constructive change.
Alongside wellbeing webinars, the TV Mindset has also tackled issues such as the culture of fear in TV as well as racism in the industry (a webinar that has since been watched by over 6,000 people). The name is now recognised in the industry as a force for change, and helps advise and inform policies of key players and institutions.
Dan Maynard
Daniel is senior communications professional with more than 20 years’ experience working with leading global entertainment and media brands together with one of the UK’s premier global communication agencies. He also sits on the British Academy of Film & Television Arts (BAFTA) Television committee.
With a blended background across entertainment, media and tech, Daniel spent the past few years at the The Walt Disney Company as Vice President, Television & Direct-to-Consumer, EMEA. In this role, he led a team of 40+ throughout the region and was responsible for creating and implementing the department’s full communications strategy. This included leading all communications for the successful launch of Disney+ across 17 markets helping the overall platform to acquire over 100 million global subscribers in its first 15 months.
Daniel joined Disney, following the acquisition of 21st Century Fox, where he led communications for 21st Century Fox’s television business across Europe & Africa for three years, which also involved launching National Geographic Partners across the region, working closely with non-profit global NGO National Geographic Society. At freuds, Daniel led the agency’s Media & Entertainment team and his clients included BAFTA, NBC Universal, The Shine Group, London 2012 Olympics & Paralympics, Mo Farah, Lily Cole and Condé Nast International. Prior to this, he worked at the BBC driving comms for a variety of content and brands including BBC iPlayer, Strictly Come Dancing and EastEnders. He joined the BBC from Microsoft and began his career at The Walt Disney Company in 1999.
Daniel lives in West London with his husband Stewart and their new puppy Humphrey.
Dan's IG is @danmaynard, his Twitter is @danmaynard and his Linkedin is www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-maynard-he-him-99a5861a
Katie Player
Katie Player is a freelance Line Producer & Production Manager who has worked in both film and TV most of major UK broadcasters and SVOD platforms.
Katie started her career working on Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary special, before going on to work on numerous tv series & independent films including The A Word (BBC), Kiri (C4/Hulu), Hanna (Amazon/NBCUniversal/Working Title), The Midwich Cuckoo’s (Sky) and more recently The Diplomat (Netflix). She has also Produced the Edinburgh TV Festivals first ever Meet the Commissioners event.
Katie is co-founder of the UK pressure group Underlying Health Condition (UHC), campaigning for better access and support for those with a disability working in the film and tv industry.
