Past Fast Trackers
MGEITF Fast Track has enhanced and fulfilled the careers and ambitions of its delegates, who have progressed in a variety of roles across the industry. Here are some examples:
"I remember some parts of my time in Edinburgh. The bits I do remember very clearly were spending time with lively, like minded people from very divergent areas of the industry and learning a huge amount from them.
"Being able to be in the same room with industry luminaries and being able to ask them for five minutes of their time, sometimes they were sober. I would not have progressed so far in my career if it wasn't for Fast Track. I cannot recommend it highly enough."
Jamie Hall, Group Head of Production, Mersey Television Ltd.
"I have fond memories of Fast Track 2002. I arrived as an unemployed AP down on my luck and left with a development producer job and renewed sense of optimism. It is a stimulating and intense hothousing scheme that gives you the passion and motivation to make great programmes, and offers a rare glimpse into the movers and shakers who shape our industry."
Mark Rossiter, Head of Development, Diverse
"I was a Director/ Assistant Producer on Blue Peter when he came to Edinburgh in 1998 for TV25. A weekend's exposure to the George Bar gave me a taste of working within the commissioning side of the industry. Within a few months I became a Development Planner for BBC One - running the channel's Entertainment and Factual development slates. A year later I moved back to BBC Production- working for Lorraine Heggessey as Head of New Media and New Channels. In 2000, I was poached by Dawn Airey to the position of Controller Interactive Programmes at Channel Five. I was appointed Controller of Youth and Music the following year, then the Controller of Special Events and Pop Features and am now Creative Director at Amaze TV."
Sham Sandhu, Creative Director, Amaze TV .
"I shared a flat with other people on the scheme and we lurched bleary eyed, but excited from the masterclasses to comedy nights and the major sessions with lots of time in between spent in earnest discussion putting the TV world to rights. I had worked in TV for a few years at that point, but only knew my own small corner of it. Fast Track was a whistlestop tour of the whole TV landscape and gave me an ambition to expand my horizons. And it was a lot of fun!". Katy Thorogood, Head of Features , North One.
"3 days that seemed to cram in 3 years of insight and access provided a transparent view of the industry as a whole and clarified where my ambitions and limited talents might take me. Today I sit at the heart of Tiger Aspect Productions and am privileged to be chairman of PACT at one of the most significant times in the independent sector's history".
Andrew Zein, Managing Director at Tiger Aspect Productions.