Brave Bison chief executive Claire Hungate will take over from Channel 4’s Keith Underwood as guest chair of the IBC2019 Content Steering Group. 

Claire Hungate speaking IBC2018

Claire Hungate: Spoke during IBC2018 conference 

The role of guest chair was newly-created last year and involves leading a collection of industry experts including BBC Studios, Google, Endemol Shine Group and Discovery, who will set the agenda for the September event and provide industry insight for IBC365.

Hungate will help to set the vision and theme for the programme, identify the challenges and opportunities across the evolving media and entertainment industry and drive awareness and engagement across traditional and online media.

Hungate’s achievements include managing director of the UK production company Wall to Wall and part of the team that sold the company to Aim-listed production Group Shed Media Plc in 2007. In 2014, she became CEO of the newly created entity Warner Bros TV Production UK.   

As Brave Bison CEO, Hungate is evolving the firm from a social agency to an end-to-end strategy, production and distribution business that creates content with a purpose. 

She is forging new relationships with Chinese conglomerate Tencent, providing content to the company via six channels across multiple genres to enable Brave Bison access to over 1.5 billion Chinese viewers.

“I am looking forward to adding my blend of television and digital experience to the IBC Content Steering Group this year,” she said.

“Bringing together leaders from a range of disciplines and companies, we start from the basis that the best content engages an audience emotionally and prompts them to share with others,” Hungate said. 

IBC2019 Content Steering Group

  • BBC Studios director of production Fiona Clarke 
  • ProSiebenSat.1 chief information officer Boris Radke
  • Variety international correspondent Stewart Clarke
  • Reliance Sports chief executive Sundar Raman
  • The Farm group commercial director Charlotte Layton 
  • Eurosport SVP technology Gordon Castle 
  • Havas X chief executive and SVP Marketing Vivendi and SVP, Vivendi Brand Marketing Maria Garrido
  • Google head of UK broadcast and entertainment, global partnerships, EMEA Justin Gupta
  • Endemol Shine Group chief executive creative networks Lisa Perrin

She added: “The challenge for the content industry is meeting the audience’s expectations in how it engages with content, and how to drive the audience to brands and platforms.

“How, when and where is that engagement taking place? How do we as industry leaders push forward strategic innovation? That is our goal for IBC this year - that we bring together a diverse range of voices to address the challenges and initiate huge future opportunities at the show in September.”

IBC head of event content Jaisica Lapsiwala said: “Claire has a dynamic and innovative understanding of both industry developments and emerging technologies and is ideally placed to lead the Content Steering Group for IBC2019 in September.”