Ford brings in Diaz for AGC TV

IM Global founder Stuart Ford has hired a veteran television executive to run the TV production division at his fledgling company AGC Studios.

Lourdes Diaz

Lourdes Diaz will serve as head of television at AGC Television, overseeing all the company’s scripted, non-scripted, non-fiction and digital television activity.

The former NBC and Comedy Central exec was most recently president of entertainment for Univision Communications (UC), having joined the US Hispanic-focused media group in 2016.

During her time at UC, Diaz worked with companies such as Televisa, Netflix, Globo and Endemol Shine Group on scripted and non-scripted formats and specials.

Ford set up content production, financing and distribution studio AGC earlier this year after leaving his role as CEO of US producer and distributor IM Global towards the end of 2017. He has brought numerous feature film execs over from IM to AGC, including head of film Greg Shapiro.

AGC Studios has been backed by three strategic investors: Latin American private asset management firm MediaNet Partners; Silicon Valley entrepreneur, Symantec CEO and founder and chairman of Fibonacci Films Greg Clark; and media and entertainment company Image Nation Abu Dhabi. Chief operating officer Miguel Palos is also a stakeholder in and co-founder of the business with Ford.

“Lourdes’ impressively deep résumé, with her extensive experience across hour-long dramas, miniseries, scripted and unscripted comedy in multiple formats, international coproductions and multicultural content make her a perfect fit for what we hope will be a diverse and prolific AGC Television output over the coming years,” said Ford.

Ford is an executive producer on DirectTV’s crime family thriller Ice, as well as on the forthcoming Cinemax action drama Jet and Lifetime drama American Princess, from Orange is the New Black writer Jenji Cohan.

AGC expects to make further television executive hires and to strike production partnerships across film and television over the coming months.