Paul Lewis is a television executive and consultant with more than three decades of broadcasting and production experience. As president and general manager of the Discovery business in Canada, Paul created, developed and commissioned some of the world's most ambitious and successful factual television and digital content. He launched the world's first daily science program, Daily Planet, executive produced documentary series and live specials and partnered with international broadcasters during Discovery Canada's most significant period of growth and expansion—leading it to become the most watched factual channel in the country. Paul oversaw the launch of five television networks and was also responsible for their related websites and social media platforms, an in-house production company and a distribution business.

Most recently Paul was president of Strategic Growth at Great Pacific Media (GPM)—an award-winning production company with a strong reputation for storytelling and ratings success.

Paul's television career began as a journalist at Canada's public broadcaster, CBC, working on news and current affairs programs. He's a founding Board member for the World Congress of Science and Factual Producers and the Canadian Science Media Centre of Canada. He's also the consultant-in-chief for the Guangzhou International Documentary Festival, China's biggest and most established documentary festival. He's a regular speaker, judge and panelist at international markets and festivals.

He's currently CEO of his own consulting and production company based in Toronto, Canada.

Before joining World Congress of Science and Factual Producers as Program Coordinator, Wanting Lei was a producer with international experience working on documentaries, co-productions and trans-media projects in China and France. She has worked on a number of documentaries for broadcasters including Netflix, National Geographic, Canal+ and CCTV.

Alison Leigh has been editorial director of WCSFP for over a decade. Under her direction the session program has acquired the reputation of being the world’s best for tracking the trends and engaging in provocative and engrossing debate around issues affecting our genre.

Previously she played a leading role in producing and commissioning science TV programs in Australia, including six years as series producer and then executive producer of ABC TV Science Unit. She helped develop National Science Week in Australia and is a founding member and past president of the Australian Science Communicators.

Outside of her WCSFP commitments, she works as a freelance writer and producer. Alison offers a comprehensive service from producing and executive producing to content origination, script writing and script editing. She also hosts and runs workshops and events.

Mark Atkin curates and creates cutting-edge projects that combine technical innovation and storytelling.

Mark has curated public exhibitions and industry conference programs at CPH:DOX, Copenhagen; Sheffield Doc/Fest; Silbersalz Science Festival; and festivals across Scandinavia, Australia and India, and is launching Electric Dreams Festival of Immersive Storytelling in London in 2019 with the National Theatre and The British Film Institute.

His work as a producer has been featured at MoMA, The Royal Academy of Arts, Edinburgh International Festival, The Barbican, and Latitude, as well as at film festivals around the world. His latest live cinema film, Arcadia, is currently on theatrical release in the UK and has been picked up for US distribution.

He produced the BBC’s first original VR commission, Easter Rising: Voice of a Rebel, which is free on the Oculus store, and RIOT, an emotionally-responsive film that uses facial-recognition technology, that has been exhibited at Festival of the Mind, Future of Storytelling and the PHI Centre in Montreal.

He is head of studies of the CPH:LAB, an incubation program for creative technologists and storytellers developing new forms of expression in factual media and runs VR/immersive labs around the world.

Tom’s creative vision and leadership have played an integral role in helping to establish Arrow as one of the most admired factual producers in the UK.

His credits include returning series America In Color, which delivered one of the highest ratings of the year for Smithsonian Channel; and highly acclaimed high-end feature documentary Under the Wire for History Films, BFI and BBC4. Tom has also spearheaded Arrow’s successful foray into the True Crime genre, which includes a slate of successful returning series for Investigation Discovery including Body Cam, See No Evil and American Monster. Tom’s UK credits include Inside Balmoral for Channel 5; Pearl Harbor: The Truth for Channel 4; and the landmark BAFTA- and RTS-winning Live From Space (a National Geographic Channel/Channel 4 co-production). Tom’s storytelling skills see him continue to produce hit returning series for broadcasters in both the UK and US.

Alexandria Christos is the head development executive at Red Rock Films International in South Africa. She has since worked on a number of projects including Nat Geo WILD’s Wild Nordic, as well as projects in production with Smithsonian and Netflix. In 2019, she was selected as a recipient of the Emerging Producers Bursary for World Congress of Science and Factual Producers (WCSFP) in Tokyo. Alexandria is also an International Excellence Scholar and Master’s graduate from Royal Holloway, University of London. Her thesis on co-production and the tax rebate system in South Africa earned her top-of-the-class honours and a distinction for her Master’s Degree in producing. Alexandria has worked in production and development for both London–based and South Africa-based production companies, working on a range of content from feature films and series to TV specials.

Lee Constable is a presenter and producer with a focus on science, technology and society. As the host of Australian science TV show, Scope, she researches, writes, presents and produces segments on diverse STEM topics. Lee’s background is in both science and humanities with a Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Science Communication. She has toured remote and regional Australia as a Questacon Science Circus presenter; founded, produced and hosted social justice and sustainability radio show SoapBox; and is the founder of Co-Lab: Science Meets Street Art, where collaborations between scientists and street artists result in science-inspired murals that evolve live for the public. This year Lee was on board the largest ever all-female expedition to Antarctica with 80 international women in STEMM. Lee filmed this adventure and is currently developing a YouTube series about the experience and the role of women in the planet’s future.

Fabrice Esteve is an experienced French independent producer with a strong track record in international co-productions. Since 2012, he heads YUZU Productions together with Christian Popp. Recent science productions include Listening to orcas, Microbiota: the amazing powers of the gut, Brains in danger, Cyborgs among us, The Bloody Truth. He is the current president of the French Association Science & Television gathering 54 production companies, and of the Pariscience international film festival.

Gabrielle Ewing is an award-winning producer and filmmaker who is fiercely passionate about amplifying stories that change mainstream narratives. Her multidisciplinary focus has allowed her to work in a variety of spaces, from investigative journalism and daily news, to indie films and short documentaries. Her work has garnered accolades from the Webby’s, Online Journalism Awards, The Society of Publication Designers and her short documentary about a transgender teen was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize. Gabrielle graduated with honors in Journalism and Film & Television from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. She’s worked for NBC New York, CNN’s Documentary Unit, and National Geographic. She is currently an Assistant Director of Programming for PBS Digital Studios in Washington, D.C. and is hungry to tell more stories.

Marita Huebinger studied german literature, bibliology and comparative linguistics from 1978 to 1985. From 1985 on she has been working for ZDF, Hessischer Rundfunk, Südwestfunk, 3sat and ARTE. Her main focus are cultural and scientific topics. She was responsible for Kulturzeit/3sat, Volle Kanne/ZDF, Lesen and Abenteuer Wissen/ZDF. Since May 2011, she has served as senior commissioning editor for science and head of ZDF department Wissen/ARTE.

Noel Kok is a producer, creative director, and storyteller with a passion for natural history and stories of African conservation. After dropping out of law school, Kok began his 25-year career in management, marketing, music and media production. Noel has produced, directed and distributed a number of albums, live shows, documentary shorts, and a conservation TV series.

Kok’s real passion is creating opportunities and unlocking barriers to entry for African storytellers. Noel is a co-founder and Executive Director of Nature, Environment & Wildlife Filmmakers, an organization dedicated to transforming wildlife, science, and conservation storytelling in Africa and supporting the continent’s next generation of conservation filmmakers.

Maia Krall Fry is an independent producer/director, having moved from fiction film into science documentaries after studying Earth Sciences. Recent independent doc commissions include shorts for BBC Four and Guardian Documentaries. These projects are produced alongside her full-time work on longform content at Windfall Films. Previous independent work, including the feature film Ebony Road, has been supported by Film 4, The Guardian, the BFI, and BBC. Targeting her experience to entertaining fiction and academia was a conscious decision to break into factual content production with the widest applicable expertise. In 2015, Maia attended WCSFP as part of the Wellcome Trust Mentoring Program for Emerging Talent. In 2016 and 2017, as session producer of The Ideas Salon. She was named as a Broadcast Magazine Hotshot in 2017.

Jim Louderback is currently CEO of online video conference company VidCon and a venture partner at Social Starts. In recent years, he has developed integrated digital video strategies for large media companies—including Viacom, Discovery and National Geographic—and built platform intentional studio facilities while launching new vertically-focused content brands. In addition, he has helped a variety of media and technology startups focus their objectives, reorient their audience and customer strategy, improve product design, and develop long-term strategic plans.

Previously Jim was CEO of online video startup Revision3, leading the company to 20x viewer and revenue growth and nine prestigious awards. In 2012, he sold Revision3 to Discovery, led the integration, launched and acquired six new networks, and built Discovery Digital Networks. Prior to that, Jim spent 16 years in increasingly senior editorial and technology management roles at TechTV, PC Magazine and PC Week.

Joseph has developed, directed and produced high end, prime time documentaries for most of the major broadcasters in Britain and America, working for many of Britain's leading production companies. He started as commissioning editor for SBS in January 2012 and became head of Documentaries in June 2016.

Michael McMahon oversees Primitive Entertainment’s selection of projects and focuses on the company’s many relationships with broadcasters, distributors, co-production partners, industry organizations and government agencies. With 30 years’ experience producing premium non-fiction content, Primitive Entertainment’s work has earned more than 40 awards worldwide. Films produced by Michael have screened at film festivals worldwide, including Hot Docs, Berlin, SXSW, Traverse City, TIFF, Sydney, Tokyo, IDFA, CPH:DOX, DOXA and the Museum of Modern Art, amongst others. Michael served as the Co-Chair of the Hot Docs Board of Directors from 2003 until 2018, and is the former Co-Chair of the Ontario Chapter of the Documentary Organization of Canada (DOC), an industry group representing 700 documentary filmmakers across Canada.

Mikael Osterby joined SVT in 1996. With a background in journalism and psychology his TV-career started with pre-testing and program development. After working as a producer, he became a schedular for a few years before entering the international TV-market in 2007 working as a buyer, executive producer and commissioner. SVT is the biggest broadcaster in Sweden. He oversees all factual genres but current affairs.

With a passion for creating bridges between different worlds, Deborah is in charge of bringing into play Ubisoft’s brands and expertise beyond video games, including Live Entertainment and VR experiences. An appreciated deal maker and inspiring leader, she also develops strategic and technology alliances with companies from other industries looking for Ubisoft’s broad range of expertise, ranging from automobile or architecture to health and cultural institutions.

A graduate from ESCP Business School (Paris) and Drexel LeBow MBA (Philadelphia), Deborah joined Ubisoft in 1997 as a Marketing Manager. She then headed up Emea Business Development for 10 years before becoming Managing Director of Ubisoft Partners, supervising third parties game development, for 5 years. She created the New Business department in 2015 and has been leading its expansion since then.

Charlie Parsons is Vice President of Development for the National Geographic Channel, responsible for developing new projects, discovering new talent and serving as one of the network’s main points of contact for the global production community. Since joining the Channel in 2010, Parsons has developed popular series Doomsday Preppers, Inside Combat Rescue, Mars and One Strange Rock, as well as the global natural history events Earth Live and Yellowstone Live. He developed the Emmy Award-winning special Space Dive, as well as the Emmy Award-winning feature doc LA 928. He also served as an executive producer on the network’s most watched program in history, the Emmy-nominated three-hour movie event Killing Jesus, as well as the second and third most watched programs, Killing Kennedy, also Emmy nominated for Outstanding Television Movie, and Killing Lincoln, respectively.

Prior to joining National Geographic, Parsons spent three years as Senior Director of Content at Travel Channel Media, during which the network garnered prime demo rating and delivery growth for seven consecutive quarters. Parsons developed more than 200 hours of programming, found new talent and executive produced some of the network’s most successful hits, including Man v. Food, Ghost Adventures and the Emmy Award-winning series Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations.

Before joining Travel Channel, Parsons was an Executive Producer with Discovery Channel and The Science Channel, overseeing series and specials, including Survivorman, FutureCar, 2057, Cracking The Ocean Code and Supercomet: After the Impact. Parsons spent the first 13 years of his career in live sports television production, working with ESPN, ABC and CBS. He is a graduate of Brown University.

2012 Emmy Award winner and record breaking five-time winner of the prestigious Eureka Prize for Science Journalism, Sonya Pemberton is one of Australia’s leading factual filmmakers. Sonya’s passion is creating quality science documentaries for international audiences. She has written and directed over 60 hours of broadcast documentary and executive produced many award-winning factual series. Her films have won over 70 international awards.

Sonya has been honoured with Australian Health Journalist of the Year in 2011 and 2013, the Jill Robb Award in 2015 and the 2016 Stanley Hawes Award for contribution to documentary.

Recent titles include Uranium: Twisting the Dragon’s Tail (SBS, PBS, ZDF/Arte), Jabbed: Love, Fear and Vaccines (SBS) and Tales of the Unexpected (SBS, Smithsonian Channel). Sonya's latest project Vitamania: The Sense and Nonsense of Vitamins, for SBS, CuriosityStream and ARTE France, dissects the multi-billion-dollar vitamin industry and is a finalist for three Jackson Hole Media Awards.

Adam Rymer was most recently president of Legendary Digital Networks where he oversaw all day-to-day business for LDN's digital brands including Nerdist, Geek & Sundry, and Smart Girls.

Previously he was COO/CFO/co-founder of film finance/production company, Lava Bear Films. Prior to Lava Bear, Rymer spent eight years at Universal Pictures, most recently as SVP, Digital Platforms, where he spearheaded the studio's new business initiatives through emerging channels including mobile, interactive games and digital cinema.

Before joining Universal Studios, Rymer had several strategy and business development roles at Universal Music and early internet start-ups. He began his professional career as an associate at L.E.K Consulting, concentrating on private equity advisement, mergers & acquisitions and valuations.

Adam earned an MBA in finance from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and a BA in applied mathematics and economics from Harvard University. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and son.

Nicolás Schonfeld is a journalist, a social communicator and an audiovisual producer.

He was trained in the career of Communication Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires, with a course aimed at audiovisual production and the management and communication of public policies. He developed as audiovisual producer at the University of Buenos Aires television (UBA TV) and as member of the founding team of TAL - Televisión América Latina -, the network that gathers public and cultural television stations in Latin America. There he served for several years as Network Director and International Relations. With the arrival of Digital TV in Argentina, he was summoned as Content Coordinator of the Argentine Digital TV System (TDA), where he was responsible for the promotion of audiovisual production in the country and the circulation of content among regional television stations. He created BACUA (Audiovisual Bank of Argentine Universal Content) and "Acua Mayor", the first channel in Latin America dedicated entirely to the elderly people. As an independent producer, he made several TV series in Latin America as General Producer, among which stand out "Tango by Horacio Ferrer" (Encuentro Channel of Argentina) and "De Zurda", for Telesur Network, a very successful show on 2014 World Cup along with football legend Diego Maradona. Nowadays he returned to TAL as Executive Director in this new era of the Latin American Television Network. Throughout his 20 years of professional career he participated in more than 30 events in America and Europe as a jury and expositor.

Matthew Shribman's missions are to make world class science education accessible to everyone, to provoke curiosity and desire for discovery, to empower people to think critically, to act on the basis of evidence and to put nature first, so that we can work towards a brighter, fairer future for all life on Earth.

Matthew is a science communicator, storyteller and environmentalist. He has appeared across the BBC, spoken for TEDx London and UN Ops, been interviewed by Piers Morgan and his online science videos have been viewed over 25M times on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. He holds a 1st Class MChem from the University of Oxford, and his broad expertise range environmental and climate science through to animal migration, cosmology and theoretical physics.

Matthew is head teacher and co-founder of AimHi: the curiosity powered, interactive online school transforming global education. Since its foundation in March 2020, AimHi has reached tens of thousands of students in more than 130 countries, with guests including Dr Jane Goodall and George Monbiot.

As an activist, in 2019, Matthew organised for 1,000 trees to appear outside the UK parliament, giving trees to over 2/3 of the UK's members of parliament. The action was a vehicle for communicating the science around the importance of tree planting. 6 weeks following the action, the UK's tree planting pledge went from 11 million up to a billion. In the words of Ed Miliband: "I think you’ve changed the conversation." In 2018, Matthew began the #NoBeef campaign, which is now supported by Peter Gabriel, Paul McCartney, the University of Cambridge, Goldsmiths University of London, and academics around the world.

As an amatuer filmmaker, Matthew has directed and produced films supported by the French Research Institute For Development and Plastic Oceans Foundation.

Matthew is a Patagonia Change Maker and member of 1% For The Planet. He has also written and recorded music that has been supported by BBC Radio 1, The Times, The Guardian and NME under the moniker Ash Lad.

Yuri is the Senior Producer of the Unit focusing on Non-linear Content Development and creating New Media Services on Emerging Media Platforms. Prior to that, he was Senior Producer to the International Co-Productions Team at NHK, with assignments as developing and coordinating various international co-production projects, many of which winning various awards and prizes. Yuri has over 20 years of directing/producing experience at the in-house production team of the network, credited for the development of nationally renowned documentary series and new history formats.

Xiao Long is a producer for documentary and factual contents, a programmer and executive director for documentary film festivals and events
. He is the producer of feature-length documentaries of The Daughter of Shanghai, Because It Is There, Wild Ball, The Champion of the Nature, the co-producer of series documentary of The Gulf Course of Great Britain and Ireland. He is the co-founder of FreshPitch (since 2016), the co-founder and Permanent Secretory of Beijing International Film Festival Documentary Sector (from 2014 to 2017), the co-founder of Outdoor Documentary Season (2017), the co-founder and director of the Documentary Training Courses of SARFT Training Academy (2016), the Annual Development Program of DocChina (2015). He is the Deputy Secretary of DocChina Committee, the experts and writer of Study Report of The Development of Chinese Documentary.

Dr. Samantha Yammine is a neuroscientist and popular Science Communicator who earned her PhD from the University of Toronto studying how stem cells build and maintain the brain. She is well known as @science.sam on Instagram, where she garners millions of views a month by empowering people o engage with science, and has become an innovative leader in producing impactful digital science communication. You can also catch her talking about science on Netflix, TVO Kids, CBC GEM, Discovery UK, CBC Radio, and AsapSCIENCE. Get in touch or learn more at heysciencesam.com.

Simon Young is a Commissioning Editor in the Specialist Factual Department at the BBC, commissioning series such as A Dangerous Dynasty: The House of Assad and Rise of the Nazis, as well as feature docs such as Untouchable: The Rise and Fall of Harvey Weinstein. He has experience on both the channel and production sides for British, US and Global broadcasters. Before taking up his present position Simon worked at National Geographic and started out in independent production, making films such as the award-winning Richard III: The King in the Car Park.