Ontario public broadcaster TVO has bolstered its leadership team with new roles across its programming and content teams.

Two new hires and two promotions were announced by John Ferri, TVO’s VP, programming and content, on Friday (June 16) in a memo to employees that was also released to the press.

Natasha Negrea (pictured right) has been promoted to the newly created role of head of programming to lead “the overall direction and evolution” of TVO’s documentary and children’s programming. Beginning effective July 7, Negrea will oversee commissions, acquisitions and production for the pubcaster, working in conjunction with marketing and development teams, reporting to Ferri.

Negrea formerly worked as an executive producer at TVO and prior to that, held development and production roles at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Blue Ant Media.

“This role is key to serving TVO’s loyal audiences, growing new ones and exploring opportunities with TVO’s digital education division to create content that aligns with the Ontario curriculum,” said Ferri.

TVO has also added two commissioning editor roles, hiring Alexandra Roberts (pictured left) to oversee documentary commissions, and promoting Kirsten Hurd (pictured below, right) to lead TVOkids commissions. Both roles report to Negrea.

Roberts, who joins TVO effective July 17, will oversee TVO’s documentary programming from development to production, and work with internal and external teams to “develop the creative and editorial direction of documentaries and related digital content.” She has worked as an independent producer for several years, both in documentary and scripted, including on Joseph Amenta’s Canadian feature Soft, which had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2022.

Hurd becomes commissioning editor, TVOkids after recently serving as interim executive producer for the kids division. She now handles original commissions and content acquisitions, and will work with internal and external teams to develop TVO’s creative and educational direction for its digital and broadcast children’s programming. She joined TVO as an acquisitions officer in 2017 after holding an executive role at marblemedia-owned Distribution360.

TVO has also hired Elizabeth St. Philip (pictured left) to the newly created role of director, program development, which begins in September and reports directly to Ferri.

The role will see St. Philip work with the digital and broadcaster teams to create and implement editorial projects, beginning with The Thread with Nam Kiwanuka. The current affairs series uses artificial intelligence technology to track online conversation patterns around key topics to explore what Ontarians are talking about, complemented with interviews with members of the community.

St. Philip most recently served as a senior producer at Blue Ant Media-owned Saloon Media, and was a senior producer at Bell Media’s CTV National News and producer on W5 for two decades. She has also created documentaries with the National Film Board of Canada.

All four roles will work closely with TVO’s programming and content leadership teams, which include Stacey Dunseath, executive producer at The Agenda with Steve Paikin and TVO Today Live, and Laurie Few, executive producer, digital content.

Photos courtesy of TVO