Directors and Deputy Directors

Directors and Deputy Directors

Nigel Parsons - Managing Director — Nigel Parsons

Nigel was responsible for contract revenue and broadcaster relations worldwide and was made a director following his role as Vice-President Europe for WTN responsible for all revenue in the region and relations with broadcasters in both Eastern and Western Europe.

Previously he was Regional Executive in charge of opening up Eastern European and former Soviet markets, instigating the first international agency news feed to Central Asia and Eastern Russia through Intersputnik.

He first joined WTN as a news editor in 1985, before moving to Zurich in 1988 as Operations Director and one of the founding members of EBC (European Business Channel), a bi-lingual, English-German business channel for Europe.

He then moved to Milan to re-launch local entertainment cable channel Telecampione as a news and business channel.

Ibrahim Helal

Ibrahim Helal: Deputy Managing Director, News and Programming

Ibrahim Helal has more than 18 years of experience in international journalism, including roles with Egyptian TV, BBC Arabic TV, the BBC World Service Trust and the Al Jazeera Arabic Channel.

Ibrahim joined Al Jazeera English from the BBC World Service Trust, where he was Project Director for the Middle East and North Africa, responsible for the training and development of Arab media organisations.

Prior to this, Ibrahim was Editor-in-Chief of the Al Jazeera Arabic Channel, responsible for editorial policy and output during the September 11th attacks and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

With the BBC’s Arabic Service in London he participated in the launch of its Arabic website and news intake department.

He switched to Abu Dhabi TV as Head of News from 2000 to 2001 overseeing coverage of events including the death of the Syrian president Hafiz Al-Assad, the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon and the second Palestinian uprising.

Before that Ibrahim helped to establish the Al Jazeera Arabic Channel as a programme editor from 1996 to 1999.

Ibrahim was chosen by the World Economic Forum to be one of the C-100 council for dialogue between civilizations in 2004 and by the same global organisation in 2005 as one of the Young Global Leaders.

Steve Clark

Steve Clark: Director of News and Programmes

Steve Clark’s career includes high-level

roles at ITN, Central/Carlton TV, LBC (Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation), MBC (Middle East Broadcasting) and Sky News.

Before joining Al Jazeera, Steve was Executive Producer of Sky News.

Prior to that Steve spearheaded the revamp of LBC’s international news operation in Lebanon and also supervised the successful transfer of MBC/Al Arabiya’s news operation from London to Dubai.

Previously he worked as Director of News and Programmes for MBC based in London where he revitalised MBC’s news, programming content and strategy. He was also Controller of Factual Programmes at ITV, in the UK.

Morgan Almeida

Morgan Almeida: Director of Creative Design

Morgan Almeida has an award-winning

design background in branding and creative direction with a comprehensive portfolio of network TV branding, interactive media for web and TV, video and film design direction and set design.

At CNN International he was responsible for the creative direction of their global on-air re-branding and design strategy.

With the BBC, Morgan spent 10 years design directing across the complete programme spectrum from news to comedy to education to drama.

For US telecom Bell Atlantic he was Creative Director for a $500 million interactive TV project. He has also consulted for Lebanon’s LBC TV and Kuwait Television.

Gary Napier

Gary Napier: Director of Finance and Administration

Gary Napier has over 25 years of experience of working in international financial and television news as well as film and video post-production and new media.

Gary joined Al Jazeera in September 2004 as Director of Finance and Administration of the English channel following his successful launch of an online retailer.

Prior to that, he has held senior level positions including Chief Financial Officer of Knight Ridder Financial, Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President at Worldwide Television News for Worldwide Television News.

Lindsey Oliver

Lindsey Oliver: Commercial Director

Lindsey Oliver joined Al Jazeera from CNBC Europe where she was Senior Vice President, Director of Network and Distribution and the network’s General Counsel.

She has uniquely combined her qualifications and experience as legal counsel with the commercial imperative of revenue and distribution growth.

Lindsey joined CNBC Europe as General Counsel in 1998 with overall responsibility for all of the businesses’ legal affairs. The distribution of CNBC Europe grew by 11 million households in the year following Lindsey’s appointment as Director of Network.

Wendy Fagan: Director of Human Resources

Wendy Fagan

Wendy Fagan has 18 years of experience in the Human Resources field including as Vice President of Human Resources and Director of Human Resources for several of GE’s businesses, including NBC Europe and GE Capital Information Technology Solutions.

Wendy led the European integration of Universal Picture Studios and Television Stations, involving 1,000 employees across 16 countries, ranging from the UK to the Czech Republic, into the NBC and GE architecture and culture.

Colin Sherriff: Director of Engineering

Colin Sheriff

Colin Sherriff brings over 30 years of experience to Al Jazeera English from his senior roles across the world in broadcast technology, from the UAE’s Taj Television, Singapore-based ESPN Star Sports, Hong Kong’s Star TV, New Zealand’s Canterbury Television and Television New Zealand.

These roles give Colin a wide range of expertise in international broadcasting including engineering, implementation, development, broadcast and MIS requirements, encryption and distribution, as well as ongoing and future technical planning.

DEPUTY DIRECTORS

Al Anstey

Al Anstey: Deputy Director of News

Al Anstey joined Al Jazeera English from the UK’s ITN where he was Head of Foreign News – responsible for running foreign coverage and managing news teams.

Al previously held roles as ITN’s Foreign Editor and Senior Foreign Editor, in which he covered all the major stories in world news.

He first became a producer at the US’s CBS News, then moved to the start-up of the UK’s GMTV as News Editor.

Al was then hired by APTN to set up their offices in Asia, then switched to their Sydney office to set up operations in the South Pacific, before moving to London as Asia Editor with responsibility for all of APTN’s bureaux and coverage in the region.

Alan Mercer: Deputy Director of Engineering

Alan Mercer is a television professional with over 30 years of broadcast experience. Alan’s career has seen him build expertise with both the BBC and EuroNews, evolving in both organisations’ engineering and production environments.

In his most recent role with EuroNews, based in France, he spent 13 years at the channel and became its Resources Director in 2001, managing both technological production processes and external distribution requirements.

Coleena Reid: Deputy Director of Programmes

Coleena Reid has over 28 years of experience in the UK’s television industry including roles as Managing Director of Broadcasting for Carlton Television, Controller of Broadcasting for four ITV stations, and Head of Faculty for Communications Media at Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication, UK.

Coleena’s responsibilities have included network and regional programme strategy, programme commissioning, production and acquisition across various genres of programming, scheduling, on-air presentation, promotions and channel management.