Nutopia expands creative team

Jane Root’s US- and UK-based factual prodco Nutopia has expanded its creative team with a new hire and two promotions.

Matt Edmonds

Matt Edmonds has been appointed to the newly created role of VP of unscripted formats, joining Nutopia from Sacha Baron Cohen and Andrew Newman’s indie Spelthorne Community TV, where he was head of factual entertainment.

At Spelthorne, Edmonds worked on shows including Who is America for Showtime and Let’s Talk About Sex.

Prior to that, he was head of development at Rumpus Media, where he co-created Asian Provocateur with Romesh Ranganathan for the BBC and Netflix and Joel & Nish vs the World for Comedy Central and Netflix.

Simon Willgoss

Meanwhile, Simon Willgoss has been promoted from head of development to executive producer and exec VP of development. In his new role, Willgoss will help drive Nutopia’s creative strategy and manage relationships with key partners, as well as continuing to oversee its development slate.

In addition, Sam Fernandes has been promoted to deputy head of development, in which position she will oversee the day-to-day running of the development slate. Fernandes joined Nutopia as a development researcher in 2015.

Sam Fernandes

Nutopia CEO and founder Root said: “Both Simon and Sam have been crucial to Nutopia’s success over the past few years. Simon is an outstanding executive and Sam has become a key part of our development team. We are delighted to have them and our talented new hire Matt to continue our push into popular factual.”

Nutopia is behind series such as Babies for Netflix, Disney+’s The World According to Jeff Goldblum and One Strange Rock for National Geographic.