Julie Gardner MBE

Julie Gardner, from Neath but now living in Los Angeles, has been chosen as a Finalist in the International category of the St David Awards for her work in raising the profile of Welsh TV production around the world.

In 2003, she was appointed Head of Drama for BBC Wales and one of her first assignments was to lead the revival of Dr Who in 2005. She was instrumental in making the programmes in Wales, rather than at BBC studios in England, and this revived the Welsh production industry. Julie developed on this success by commissioning Torchwood and the Sarah Jane Adventures as spin-off series, also filmed and produced in Wales.

In 2009 Julie joined BBC Worldwide America as Senior Vice President in charge of scripted projects. She has used this role to promote Wales to the US TV industry. She has been responsible for attracting valuable inward investment into Wales which has resulted in the creation of a new state-of-the-art studio in Swansea.

Her latest venture is Bad Wolf, a new transatlantic company in partnership with Jane Tranter, based in south Wales and Los Angeles. The company is to produce big-budget TV series and films for the global television market.