My Background
Greg Sanderson, Executive Producer
I’ve been working in documentary for over twenty years, with high-level experience in both production and commissioning. Whilst I specialise in feature docs and premium series, I’ve ranged from live events to factual entertainment, and virtually everything in-between.
As a freelance Executive Producer I have worked on high profile streamer series like Netflix’s ‘Depp v. Heard’ and Discovery+' ‘Unprecedented’, award-winning international feature docs including ‘The Hunt for Gaddafi’s Billions’ and factual series like ‘Picasso: Beauty and Beast’. I’m currently in production on a feature doc for Netflix, and a doc series with Idris Elba for international broadcasters.
My work in docs includes five years as Commissioning Editor of the renowned Storyville documentary strand, where I worked extremely closely with Nick Fraser on a string of acclaimed films. These range from the Academy Award winning ‘Man on Wire’, the Emmy Award winning. ‘The English Surgeon’, the Grierson winning ‘Out of the Ashes’, and the Prix Italia winning "‘The Father, The Son and The Housekeeper’. Films I Exec Produced have played at all the major film festivals around the world.
Outside the BBC, I also spent 6 years at UK super-indie Zinc Media, initially as Managing Director of the high-end Brook Lapping label, and then as Director of Television across their London and Manchester TV labels - Brook Lapping, Blakeway, Films of Record, Red Sauce and SuperCollider. As well as holding a senior management responsibilities, I continued to work as an Exec Producer across a wide range of programmes.
Highlights of my time at Zinc include four series on politics with the legendary Norma Percy for the BBC and a string of international co-producers - the BAFTA nominated ‘Inside Obama’s White House’, ‘Inside Europe’, ‘Cuba: Castro vs the World’ and ‘Trump Takes on the World’. I continue to Exec Norma’s projects. I also EP’d four programmes with Jeremy Paxman, the widely acclaimed feature doc ‘9/11: I was there’ for ITV and History US, the Nat Geo premium series ‘Buried Secrets of World War II’ and feature doc ‘China’s Megatomb Revealed’, and the Banff Film Festival Award winning ‘The Hunt for Gaddafi’s Billions.’
I also have a long track record in arts and music programming - as Commissioning Editor for Arts and Music at the BBC, Editor of Alan Yentob’s ‘Imagine’ strand and ‘The Review Show’, Commissioning Executive of the BBC Proms, and EP of programmes including the Grierson winning ‘Colin Davis: In His Own Words’, the BAFTA nominated ‘Nureyev: Leap to Freedom’, and formats including ‘Italy Unpacked’ and ‘The Quizeum, with Griff Rhys Jones’.