Page 52 - Powerlist 2019 - Digital Edition

NEW Reggie Yates
Media, Publishing & Entertainment Reggie Yates has effortlessly made the leap from Top of the

2019
Broadcaster

Pops and Radio 1 Chart Show host to a hugely popular and
critically acclaimed presenter of hard-hitting and thought-
provoking documentaries.
This March his BBC Two documentary Grenfell Tower’s
Hidden Victims revealed the untold stories of some of the
victims caught up in the devastating fire.
In 2016, Reggie was awarded Best Presenter for the
critically acclaimed Extreme Russia at the Royal Television
Society Awards, Best Factual Programme at the Edinburgh
TV Festival, and Best Multi-Channel Programme at the
Broadcast Awards. His films for the BBC3 Extreme series are
all available to a worldwide audience on Netflix.
Last year, Reggie returned with a second series of The
Insider for the BBC, which included him spending a week
on a toxic waste dump in Ghana, a week in a refugee camp
in Syria and a week working as a guard at Guildford County
Jail in North Carolina.
In 2017, Reggie also released his debut book Unseen: My
Journey, taking readers behind the scenes of his transition
from TV presenter to documentary maker.
He is a talented screenwriter, his first short, Patriach,
airing on Channel 4 as part of their Random Acts season NEW Tunde Ogungbesan
and another, Shelter, airing on BBC iPlayer last September. 2019 BBC Head of Diversity, Inclusion and
His second short film, Date Night, starring Oscar nominee Succession
Daniel Kaluuya, won Best UK Short at the London
Independent Film Festival.
Reggie’s charity work with UNICEF and the Appointed three years ago amid much fanfare to lead a new
Commonwealth Games has taken him to Jamaica to learn pan-BBC diversity and inclusion team, Tunde is the man at
about the sport and education work UNICEF is doing there. the helm of making a real difference to representation both
on and off-air.
Brought in from oil and gas multinational Shell, where
he led their global diversity and inclusion strategy for five
years, Tunde works closely with Director General Tony Hall
and other senior executives. He is responsible for the public
service broadcaster’s ambitious diversity strategy for staff
and on-screen portrayal and is charged with driving better
engagement with a diverse workforce and audience.
He has pledged to make far-reaching changes to the
culture of the corporation – citing his own alienation from
the broadcaster: “When I joined it occurred to me that I
didn’t actually watch the BBC and when I started to look at
programmes I realised why; it didn’t reflect my reality.”
He has promised to introduce training exploring
unconscious bias, and to anonymise the recruitment
process. He has also overseen an increase in the number
of apprenticeships from 37 in 2012 to more than 230 in 2017,
and set a goal of more than 400 by next year, claiming they
make the BBC accessible to people from all backgrounds.
Acknowledging, “we need to do better on air as well”, Tunde
cites new commissioning schemes as having helped to push
through programmes including Muslims Like Us, World Hip
Hop News and Will Britain Ever Have a Black Prime Minister?
By 2020, he aims for half of all lead roles across all genres –
from news to drama – to be held by women. He also oversees
a Creative Access scheme bringing in interns from black,
Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, and has increased
trainee roles for disabled people, as well as leadership
schemes that now comprise more than 50 per cent female
recruits.

48 Powerlist 2019