Fremantle is expanding its production and development executive team, hiring Jamal Robinson as head of U.S. production, both unscripted and scripted, and Emily Knight as senior vice president of unscripted development.
In his new role, Robinson will oversee all aspects of the company’s physical production, including those under Fremantle-owned studios Eureka and Original Productions. He will report directly to Suzanne Lopez, Chief Operating Officer of Fremantle North America.
Prior to joining Fremantle, Robinson most recently served as Executive Vice President of Physical Production and Head of AI at A+E Global Media. He previously worked at Netflix as vice president of production management for the U.S. and Canada. Robinson won an Emmy Award for his work as a producer on Niecy Nash’s unscripted series “Clean House.”
Mr. Knight will focus on developing new scriptless formats for Fremantle with the goal of global scalability. She will report to Jimmy Foxx, Fremantle’s executive vice president of unscripted development and sales.
Knight most recently served as senior vice president of development at AGC Studios, which produced “The Tinder Swindler.” Previously, he was head of development at British companies including Expectation and All3 Media’s Maverick, with credits including Ex on the Beach, Escape, the reboot 10 Years Younger and How to Look Good Naked.
“As our production plans continue to grow in both scale and ambition, it is imperative that our leadership team evolves with it,” said Lopez. “Adding these two outstanding executives to our leadership team will ensure Fremantle remains at the forefront of delivering ground-breaking programs across all platforms.”
“Fremantle has an exceptional creative heritage and strong foundations across both unscripted and scripted programming,” Mr Robinson said. “We look forward to partnering with the team to align our production and creative pipeline in a way that supports our studio and continues to deliver premium content to viewers on all viewing platforms.”
“Fremantle is synonymous with world-class unscripted television and the opportunity to work with Jimmy is incredible,” said Knight. “His creative instincts and desire for scale align perfectly with how I approach development, and I’m very excited to work with the great team here to help build the next generation of great global formats.”
