Governors

Jay Hunt OBE is Apple TV+ Creative Director for Europe. She is the only person to have led BBC One, Channel 5 and Channel 4. She started her career at BBC News working on Newsnight and Panorama before becoming editor of both the One O’clock and Six O’clock News. She was Controller of BBC Daytime and Director of Programmes at Channel 5, before returning to the BBC in 2008 to run BBC One. In 2011 she was made the first Chief Creative Officer of Channel 4. Over the next seven years, she led what was described as a “creative renaissance”. She has commissioned an array of global hits including Luther, Sherlock, Slow Horses, Black Mirror, Derry Girls and Gogglebox and in 2023 was named one of the 35 most powerful women in TV by the Hollywood Reporter. Jay was awarded an OBE in the King’s 2023 Birthday Honours for services to the arts.

Having been first appointed to the Board of Governors in 2020, Jay was appointed in January 2024 as Chair for a four-year term commencing on 16 February 2024.

Michael is a Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company and serves as Managing Partner of the firm in the UK and a member of McKinsey’s global board of directors. He previously was global co-leader of the firm’s Strategy & Corporate Finance Practice and a member of the McKinsey Global Institute Council.

Michael is also a governor of the Royal College of Art, one of the world’s leading art and design universities. He has served as a trustee of the Marshall Scholarships and the World Schools Debating Championships, on the advisory council of King’s Business School, and as a director of BritishAmerican Business.

Michael chairs the BFI’s Finance Committee.

Monica Chadha is a senior advisor and board member across the entertainment and technology sectors. She is an advisor to the Digital Entertainment Group International (DEGI), British Association for Screen Entertainment (BASE), the International Union of Cinemas (UNIC) and chair of a PwC Advisory Board.

Monica is a voting member of BAFTA, the British Screen Forum and serves on the 30% Club Steering Committee. She is a faculty member of the Financial Times Board Director Programme and an Executive Coach.

Previously Monica was CEO of MyMovies.Net; Vice Chair of Queen Mary University of London; Founder and Co-Chair of the Deloitte Higher Education Cyber Security Group; Chair of the British Independent Film Awards Advisory Board; Non-Executive Director of Obviously Creative, and the British Video Association; Advisory Board member of the BAFTA Digital Communications Group, Marlow Film Studios, the CMI President’s Advisory Council; and member of the APPG for AI and Bias in AI Research Group at Durham University.

In 2018 Monica was appointed an ambassador for Women on Boards. In 2019 she was voted one of the top 50 Women to Watch in the UK in the Female FTSE Board Report.

Elizabeth is an internationally renowned, award-winning producer. She co-founded the leading independent UK-based production company Number 9 Films in 2002 with partner Stephen Woolley, garnering 57 BAFTA nominations and wins and 23 Academy Award nominations and wins.

In February 2019, Elizabeth and Stephen jointly received the highly prestigious and coveted BAFTA Award for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema. She has produced some of the most celebrated independent films in the US and Europe including: Todd Haynes’s Carol (nominated for six Academy Awards, six Golden Globe Awards, and nine BAFTA Awards); Mark Herman’s Little Voice (winner of a Golden Globe Award, nominated for one Academy Award, six Golden Globe Awards, and six BAFTA Awards); Neil Jordan’s The Crying Game (winner of an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and nominated for six Academy Awards); Made in Dagenham (nominated for three BAFTA Awards); Phyllis Nagy’s Mrs. Harris (nominated for 12 Emmy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, and a PGA Award); Wash Westmoreland’s Colette (nominated for four BIFAs and an Independent Spirit Award); and Paolo Sorrentino’s Youth (nominated for one Academy Award and winner of three European Film Awards).

Elizabeth and Stephen’s latest feature Living – a reworking of Kurosawa’s classic Ikiru – received numerous accolades including three BAFTA Award nominations and two Academy Award nominations. Their upcoming projects include Fleur Fortuné’s The Assessment, starring Alicia Vikander and Elizabeth Olsen, and award-winning theatre director Marianne Elliott’s feature debut The Salt Path, starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs.

Declan Keeney PhD, FRSA is a Professor (Chair) of Screen Technologies & Innovation at Ulster University, Director of the Ulster Screen Academy and CEO of Studio Ulster. He is an expert advisor on the screen industry’s future workforce needs and in emerging screen technologies trends such as real-time VFX workflows. Declan co-founded Studio Ulster, in Northern Ireland, a £75m large scale commercial virtual production and real-time visual effects studio in partnership with Belfast Harbour Studios, Northern Ireland Screen and Ulster University. He was appointed as its CEO in June 2024.

Declan is a Fellow of The Royal Society of Arts and a member of the British Council’s Arts & the Creative Economy Advisory Group. His current research portfolio in support of the screen industries represents £91.5m worth of live grant-based research and development investments. Declan is an AHRC/DCMS Policy Fellow in the Future Observatory at the Design Museum in London exploring net zero and carbon reduction using emerging technologies for film production. He leads the CoSTAR Network Lab in NI, a £17m investment in a world class research lab and part of the largest research network for Virtual Production in Europe. Declan is a Co-investigator at Future Screens Northern Ireland and a Co-investigator on an EPSRC Network+ project entitled ‘Virtual Production in a Digital Economy’. He has over 25 years of film and television production experience, including 13 years as staff at the BBC.

Laura is a seasoned technology and media executive with 25+ years of leadership in development, marketing, commercial, and data/analytics in the operation and strategic guidance of interactive entertainment. As President of EA Entertainment & Technology, she leads EA’s portfolio of licensed and owed IP and oversees key development studios, alongside leading central technology and development services. Prior to this, Laura served as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Studios Officer of EA.

Laura is passionate about increasing the number of opportunities for women and underrepresented talent, leading EA’s efforts to advance representation across the company and its games. Laura founded the EA Women’s Ultimate Team Employee Resource Group to promote gender diversity and equality inside and outside the organization and an inclusion framework as part of the game development process leading to EA SPORTS FIFA 16 being the first AAA sports title to integrate female players — four years before it became the industry standard.

Laura is amongst AdAge’s “Women to Watch” list, San Francisco Business Times “Most Influential Women in Business,” and Variety’s Entertainment Gaming Leaders, a member of Fast Company’s Impact Council and a member of The Game Awards Advisory Board.

Eleanor (Nell) Whitley has a reputation for driving forward ambitious work in a variety of forms – live events, art installations & digital media – her collaborations with Marshmallow Laser Feast (where she is Executive Producer) demonstrate a unique vision for the future of creative experiences. She has produced the critically acclaimed In the Eyes of the Animal (Sundance New Frontier 2016, Wired Award for Innovation in Experience Design) and other mixed reality works, including; A Colossal Wave (SXSW 2018), Treehugger (Tribeca Film Festival Storyscapes Award 2017 & Best VR Film at Arles Festival) and We Live in an Ocean of Air which premiered at the Saatchi Gallery, London (2018-9).

Edgar Wright first gained worldwide recognition for his Three Flavours Cornetto film trilogy consisting of Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and The World’s End, each made with actors Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as well as producer Nira Park, all frequent collaborators. He worked with the same team while directing the late-1990s/early-2000s television series Spaced. Wright also co- wrote, produced and directed the 2010 film Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Along with Joe Cornish and Steven Moffat, he co-wrote Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn in 2011.

He wrote and directed the 2017 action crime film Baby Driver, which went on to become a global box office hit, and in 2021 directed and co-wrote, with Krysty Wilson-Cairns, Last Night in Soho which starred Thomasin McKenzie, Anya Taylor-Joy, Matt Smith, and Dame Diana Rigg in her final film role. 2021 also saw the release of Wright’s first documentary film, The Sparks Brothers, covering the entire 50-year legacy of Ron and Russell Mael of California pop band Sparks. His latest feature, The Running Man, an adaptation of Stephen King’s 1982 novel starring Glen Powell, was released in November 2025.