Vice Studios becomes a major player in the global scripted market

Chief Operating Officer, Scripted Television

The Challenge: Our client had secured a commission for the now hugely successful returnable scripted drama series Gangs of London, for Sky Drama. Having never produced a scripted series on this scale, our client had a very limited scripted infrastructure in place and no one with experience leading a series of this scale with a $50m budget.

Our Approach: Our brief was to hire a Head of Production to help build the team. The search revealed that many established Heads of Production were sceptical of the client as a newcomer to the scripted world and would therefore not consider the role. We therefore advised our client that we needed to elevate the role, and hire a COO with the business capability alongside production capability. We rewrote the job description and benchmarked the salary. Part of this exercise was also about the founders planning their exit, and expediting their succession planning by looking for a leader who could take over the management of this important division. 

The Result: Our candidate had previously set up and run a hugely successful scripted production company in the UK creating one of the most successful scripted brands for Netflix, and was looking for his next move. The scale of our client's ambition was attractive to him, as well as the opportunity to bring a new series to screen. Our candidate is still with the business five years later and has been promoted to Global President Scripted.