Adil Ray OBE is star and creator of the hit BBC1 sitcom Citizen Khan. After five series, the show has become one of the UK’s much-loved sitcoms, broadcasting worldwide.

Adil has received five RTS Awards, including Best Comedy, Best Comedy Performance and Best Current Affairs. In 2021, Adil was presented with Asian Media Personality of The Year Award.

In 2020, Adil appeared in his first feature film, Blithe Spirit alongside Dame Judi Dench. In 2021, Adil played lawyer, Imran Khan in the highly acclaimed ITV drama Stephen.

Adil has presented BBC1’s Have I Got News For You, appeared on Who Do You Think You Are and can currently be seen presenting ITV’s Good Morning Britain and Lingo.

In 2016, Adil was awarded Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for services to media & broadcasting.

In 2021, assisted by Debbie Manners (BBC, Keo, Hat Trick), Adil launched Birmingham based production company: Cornered Tiger.

Andy Street was elected as the first Mayor of the West Midlands in May 2017 and re-elected in 2021. The role’s primary function is to chair the West Midlands Combined Authority, with significant powers over transport, housing, skills and jobs.

Before becoming Mayor, Andy combined a career with John Lewis, Britain’s most successful workers’ co-operative, with high-profile economic development roles, working with local and national government.

Starting on the John Lewis graduate scheme, Andy rose to become Managing Director, overseeing one of the most successful periods in the company’s history.

He was Chair of the Greater Birmingham & Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership between 2011 and 2016. Additionally, he has been lead non-executive director for the Department for Communities and Local Government as well as a member of the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Group.

Andy is passionate about the arts and was awarded the CBE for services to the national economy.

Ben is Chief Content Officer, UK, at Paramount (formerly ViacomCBS), with oversight of Channel 5 and its digital brands, the wider Paramount channel portfolio, and the global streaming service Paramount+ UK which launched in June 2022.

Under Ben's leadership, Channel 5 has undergone a creative transformation through continued investment in high quality originations across all genres, and a focus on increasing original commissions for peak time. Channel 5 has broadened the scope of its programming, commissioning drama, history and more, to build on its roots in factual programming and attract talent including Michael Palin, Susan Calman, Jay Blades and Jeremy Vine. This fundmental shift in the channel's perception - and wider audience appeal - has been recognised with a raft of industry awards, including Channel 5's first ever BAFTA for Cruising with Jane McDonald, Channel of the Year awards from Edinburgh and the RTS, and accolades for programmes across a range of genres.

As Chief Executive of Screen Yorkshire, Caroline champions the film, TV and wider screen industries in Yorkshire & Humber and provides leadership to a talented team of industry experts who deliver skills and talent development, production support and content investment. Caroline’s 25-year career within the screen industries has evolved from running her first production company with acclaimed music video director Dawn Shadforth to her previous role as Head of Creative at Screen Yorkshire.  Along this journey she has spent time as Talent Development Executive for Scottish Film Talent Network, Head of Film at Creative England, Head of Creative Development at Warp X, managed the UK Film Council’s nationwide short film programme through her company Lifesize Pictures and spent a year as Director of the Sheffield International Documentary Festival.

Charlie is a Course Assistant on the Content Creatives scheme held by SharpFutures and partnered with Channel 4. She grew up in Blackpool and lived in Manchester before starting her creative journey studying Scriptwriting for Film & TV at Bournemouth University. Though Charlie enjoyed learning about the craft of story, she felt lost in herself. So after graduating, Charlie decided to pursue her dream of moving to Japan where she immersed herself into the culture working as an Assistant Language Teacher.

Coming back in 2020 during the pandemic, Charlie wanted to make the best use of her time and boost her skills as entry-level creative media jobs and schemes were sparse or postponed. In September 2020, she enrolled as a Master’s student in Media Production (TV Drama Strand) at University of Salford. It was during this time she had the opportunity to find her artistic voice by writing/directing her own short films and creative content. Alongside her studies, she worked as a runner at Red Production Company Ltd., and as a POD member for SharpFutures.

Now a Master’s graduate, Charlie is committed to bringing more unique storytelling on our screens and elevating diversity within the creative sector.

Chenine is the Creative Director the UK City of Culture in Coventry 2021.

As architect of the creative programme, she has overall responsibility for developing the programmes, co-creation, community engagement and the development of national and international partnerships. Coventry UK City of Culture 2021 began on 15 May 2021, running for 12 months. It has been a large scale, high impact programme of activity, planned and delivered during a global pandemic and co-created with communities. The programme has been designed with the people of Coventry and brings about long-term social, economic and cultural benefits.

Chenine previously worked for the Greater London Authority where she led the Mayor’s Cultural Placemaking Team and conceived, designed and delivered the Mayor’s London Borough of Culture competition.

Dan Lee is the reigning Champion of 2021 MasterChef: The Professionals.

With a unique style of cooking, combining South-East Asian flavours with European cooking styles Dan brings a freshness and charm to the industry.

Having been brought up in Birmingham in the UK with a mixed background of Irish, English and Cantonese heritage, Dan developed an understanding of foreign flavours and how they could work together from an early age.

With a passion for street food and its affordability, Dan has worked in many professional Michelin Star kitchens including Stagiaires at Purnells, Table 65, Nahm and Ikoyi.

Following his success at MasterChef, Dan has been approached by additional world famous kitchens and chefs for collaborations, festivals and residencies.

Deborah has 30 years of experience in television, film and theatre and policy development across the wider creative and cultural industries. In 2022 she was awarded an OBE for services to Diversity in the Arts and Creative Industries. In 2023 she received the 'Behind The Scenes Impact' award from Diversify TV Awards at MIPCOM and she is a three-time power lister of The Shaw Trust Disability Power 100.

Since joining Creative Diversity Network (CDN) in 2016, Deborah Williams has led the UK broadcasting industry charge to bring disability to the diversity conversation. She has introduced greater accountability by developing Diamond, CDN's world-leading diversity data monitoring which reports annually on the diversity picture in the broadcasting industry. In 2019 she introduced CDN's 'Doubling Disability' programme which is inspiring change not just in the UK but in Hollywood, Germany and Australia.

Eddie is responsible for BBC Northern Ireland’s Commissioning Department. He commissions local content, drives Nations-to-Network commissioning strategy, and established BBC NI’s successful partnership scheme with BBC Three and Northern Ireland Screen.

Previously, he worked at RTÉ, where he commissioned The Young Offenders and Mrs Browns Boys, and launched and ran the investigative documentary strand Prime Time Investigates.

Eddie is from Belfast. He joined BBC NI in February 2018, to run in-house production, and was appointed to his current position in September 2019. He studied Law at Trinity College Dublin, has a Masters in Journalism from Dublin City University, and Diplomas in Strategy & Innovation from the Irish Management Institute. He has worked in print journalism, TV production and commissioning across multiple genres in the UK and Ireland, and received Ireland’s TV Journalist of the Year Award in 2001 for his work in Afghanistan.

Fiona's focus is on launching shows that attract the UK under 35 audience in scripted and unscripted. Her work also involves the social media and off platform journeys that can drive a show's success.

BBC iPlayer is the home of youth skewing titles such as RuPaul's Drag Race UK, Glow Up, The Rap Game UK, I Kissed A Boy as well as scripted shows such as Dreaming Whilst Black, Man Like Mobeen, Normal People, BAFTA winning Mood from Nicole Lecky and the forthcoming Boarders ( ALL3Media ), Kidnapped (BBC Studios) and Good Girls Guide to Murder (Moonage Pictures).

Previously Fiona was Digital Director of BBC News working on BBC News content and partnerships with global platforms such as Facebook, Snap, Apple, Twitter and Jio. In her early career Fiona produced current affairs documentaries internationally including, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Africa and Asia and was also a Commissioning Editor on Channel 4 News in the UK.

Fozia is the Unscripted Lead for UK Originals at Amazon Studios. Prior to joining Amazon, Fozia was commissioning Editor at Channel 4 in the Documentaries department where she worked across 24 Hours in Police Custody and commissioned Damilola: The Boy Next Door and is Covid Racist?

Before joining C4, Fozia was a Channel commissioner across BBC TWO and an Executive Producer at the Garden Productions where her credits include Posh People: Inside Tatler (BBC Two), The Audience and Extremely British Muslims (C4).

Harjeet Chhokar is a Unscripted Development Executive in the UK Originals Team, at Amazon MGM Studios. He works across the unscripted slate, primarily on documentaries. Prior to joining Amazon MGM Studios, Harjeet was a Documentaries and Specialist Factual Commissioner at Channel 4 and also spent 17 years working in production, across a wide range of Factual programming.

Ian Katz is Chief Content Officer of Channel 4. Publicly owned and commercially funded, Channel 4 has a statutory remit to deliver high-quality, innovative, alternative content across its portfolio of channels including E4, More4 and streaming service All 4.

Ian has overall responsibility for the creative output across Channel 4, its portfolio and All 4, leading the creative commissioning team to ensure Channel 4’s unique remit to innovate, take creative risks and represent all of the UK on screen is reflected in its programmes and content.

Under his leadership, awards-winning output includes: It’s a Sin; For Sama; Derry Girls; Hollyoaks; This Way Up; We Are Lady Parts; Joe Lycett’s Got Your Back; Channel 4 News.

Ian is an experienced creative leader with an award-winning track record in broadcast, newspaper journalism and digital innovation. He was editor of BBC’s Newsnight, and Deputy Editor and Head of News at the Guardian.

At Screen Scotland, Isabel leads its drive for the cultural, social and economic development of all aspects of Scotland’s tv and film sector through enhanced funding, services and support.

Previously Head of International at the BFI, her role combined editorial, production and policy expertise. Drawing together industry, public and government stakeholders to identify the UK screen industries’ key sectors and territories, she led the design and delivery of a package of initiatives and funding to help achieve success on the international stage, including the negotiation of co-production treaties with Morocco, Palestine, Israel, China and Brazil.

Production Executive/Executive Producer credits on high profile UK co-productions include Pawel Pawlikowski’s Cold War (Cannes 2018 Official Selection, winning Best Director); Haifaa Al Mansour’s Mary Shelley (TIFF 2017); Yorgos Lanthimos’s Oscar® nominated The Lobster (Official Competition, Cannes 2015); Claire Denis’ High Life and Victor Kossakovsky’s Aquarela. She also backed the development of films from Scottish talent including David Mackenzie and Rona Munro.

Jackson cultivated the visual art of storytelling in Greater Manchester with a background in Drama & Theatre, which he transferred into filmmaking whilst studying at The Northern Film School. Through volunteering with queer organisations such as The Proud Trust and Bradford Shade, he formed a passion to explore the underrepresented voice to reflect the world we live in.

His directed/written work has been involved in festivals such as Leeds International Film and Manchester’s Filmed Up. After working as a production Coordinator alongside visionary Gage Oxley at Oxygen Films to produce his hit series A Series of Light, Jackson moved into Casting as an assistant for one of the UK’s leading casting directors Nicci Topping. He is constantly developing his craft of screenwriting with voluntary work at The Screen & Story Film Festival, whilst his screenplays and extended writing portfolio strives to open taboo conversations around identity, sexuality, and mental health. He holds this very dear to his heart as a proud queer, mixed-race man with autism.