Meet the team
Vicky Jepson, Event Producer
Vicky is a well connected media professional with a wealth of creative industry knowledge, expertise and experience. She started her career at the BBC, becoming an award winning television producer, specialising in factual entertainment and documentaries.
Now freelance, Vicky has a successful portfolio career, drawing on her flair for communication, strong editorial skills and proven track record in project management. Passionate about training, Vicky set up and ran Create Central’s Screen Bootcamps and was Director of the Creative Futures Incubator at the University of Warwick.
Her clients include BBC Academy, Channel 4, Creative UK, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Paramount and Sunset+Vine. Her work takes her all over the world, from TV production hubs in the UK to British embassies in Belgium, Saudi Arabia and Barbados.
She has two teenage sons, loves the arts and has graduated from Couch to 5k on more than one occasion!
Ruth Pitt, Creative Director
Ruth is a trained journalist and a former head of documentaries at Granada Television, creative director of documentaries in BBC Religion and Ethics and head of factual at Tiger Aspect Productions. She also founded and ran her own production company Real Life Productions.
Since 2015 Ruth’s media consultancy Under The Moon Ltd has been advising local government and other organisations on the development of the screen and creative sectors outside London.
The company also runs industry events and designs mentor networks to help under-represented groups through glass ceilings. Clients include Channel 4, ScreenSkills, Pact and councils in Bradford, Leeds, the wider North East and the office of West Yorkshire Mayor Tracy Brabin.
Ruth was creative consultant for the Leeds City Region’s successful campaign to secure Channel 4’s new National HQ, which garnered a Royal Television Society award for outstanding contribution to television.
She is a regular chair at festivals and events and is currently working closely with the Poet Laureate Simon Armitage to establish a ground-breaking National Poetry Centre in Leeds.
Susie Townson, Event Organiser and Project Manager
Susie has worked on the Creative Cities Convention since it began in 2017. She started her career at the BBC working as a researcher, AP and then producer in the Features and Events Department. She worked on studio based shows with Esther Ranzten, Jill Dando, Nick Ross and Nicky Campbell and produced a live, daily, lifestyle programme presented by Richard Hammond. She then moved into programme development which she did at both the BBC and Discovery Networks Europe where her role involved looking for new on-screen talent.
As well as organising the Creative Cities Convention, Susie works alongside Ruth at Under the Moon where she manages the various mentoring projects and events they run. This includes Channel 4’s Commissioning Mentor Network and in 2022 the Pact Indie Party: a one-off event to celebrate the UK indie production sector, hosted by Hugh Dennis and Miquita Oliver with Boy George performing and DJ’ing at the after-party.