BBCS, ITVS and Fremantle alum Charissa Coulthard takes development role at Deep Fusion

UK production company and AI specialist Deep Fusion Films has hired former BBC Studios (BBCS), ITV Studios (ITVS) and Fremantle development executive and creative producer Charissa Coulthard.

Charissa Coulthard

Coulthard will take on the newly created role of development exec, responsible for shaping unscripted formats across Deep Fusion’s digital-first and traditional broadcast slates, working closely with the creative team to develop talent-led ideas inspired by audience behaviour and emerging technology.

She will build the infrastructure to create scalable, cross-platform IP that reflects what audiences are watching today but also what they will expect to watch in the future.

Additionally, she will “build on Deep Fusion’s background in ethical AI production to drive new applications that challenge the way in which unscripted content is developed, funded and distributed,” according to the company.

Coulthard has held senior development positions at ITVS, BBCS, Fremantle and Curve Media since joining the BBC as a production trainee in 2008. Her recent unscripted credits include fashion format The Unique Boutique for Channel 4, factual series Maximum Security for BBC Daytime and travelogue Britain by Balloon: Minute by Minute for Paramount-owned 5.

Deep Fusion was founded in 2023 by Benjamin Field and Jamie Anderson and has produced content including feature-length docs Hammer: Heroes, Legends & Monsters for Sky and Hunt: We Need to Talk About James. It is also the company behind podcast series Virtually Parkinson, hosted by an AI version of the late British chatshow host Michael Parkinson.