Alan Black, former director of operations for Toronto’s Hot Docs festival and managing director of the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema, is joining Canadian podcast company and news organization Canadaland as its chief operating officer.
Black resigned from his posts with Hot Docs in early April, after two decades with the organization.
At Canadaland, Black will be tasked with overseeing all non-editorial operations for the company, as well as spearheading its growth strategy as the company expands its subscription program and develops projects for film and television.
In a statement Canadaland publisher Jesse Brown heralded Black as “a champion of non-fiction storytelling” and “innovator who understands how to harness the passion audiences have for the content they believe in, and how to convert it into growth and sustainability for mission-based cultural organizations.”
Black said Canadaland’s team — which also includes hosts Fatima Syed and Arshy Mann — “have fearlessly devoted themselves to telling important Canadian stories that have the ability to engage people in conversation and debate in a way that is utterly necessary.”
Black’s departure was among several changes at Hot Docs in April. Heather Conway, Hot Docs co-president and exec director, transitioned to a new advisory role on strategic planning just six months after joining the organization, and co-president Chris McDonald assumed sole leadership.
With its news and current affairs programming downloaded more than 700,000 times per month, Canadaland’s podcast miniseries include Cool Mules, winner of the 2021 Gold Award for best podcast (arts & culture) from the Digital Publishing Awards, and Thunder Bay, which has been adapted in partnership with Entertainment One into a four-part Crave Original documentary TV series, slated to debut this winter.
This story originally appeared in Realscreen
With files from Playback