Biography

Vanessa co-founded Wildstar Films in 2018 after 25 years of working for the BBC's Natural History Unit where she led large teams on series such as Frozen Planet and won key business including Planet Earth 2.

After studying Human Sciences at Oxford University, Vanessa joined the BBC's NHU where she produced and directed 15 films for 5 award winning landmark series - Planet Earth, Frozen Planet, David Attenborough's Life of Mammals, Land of the Tiger and The Human Animal - as well as for long-running strands The Natural World and Wildlife on One and documentary series Animal People and Postcards from the Country. Awards include Emmys, BAFTAs, RTS's, TCAs, Jackson Wild awards and Wildscreen pandas. She is also a BAFTA and Grierson nominated Director.

She traveled from the North to the South Pole with Sir David Attenborough whilst producing and directing the opening episode of Frozen Planet, a series for which she won a Primetime Emmy as the Series Producer. Vanessa became an Executive Producer at the BBC for Great Bear Stakeout, Life in the Air and Planet Earth 2.

After leaving the BBC, Vanessa worked as a Consulting Executive Producer with Nutopia helping to develop the series vision for One Strange Rock. She then moved to Botswana with her husband, Mark and son, Cameron, to live in the bush for 2.5 years where together they made Elephant and a companion documentary, In the Footsteps of Elephant for Disneynature.

In the 6 years since Wildstar started, Vanessa has worked with the teams to deliver 5 series for National Geographic and Disney+ including Queens, America the Beautiful, America's National Parks, Epic Adventures with Bertie Gregory and Animals up Close, which has had another season commissioned. She is currently working on two major landmark series for National Geographic and Disneyplus - Underdogs with Ryan Reynolds and Maximum Effort, and Sentient with Darren Aronofsky of Protozoa Films. Alongside, she has been producing and co-directing Tiger for Disneynature as well as co-producing an environmental companion documentary, Tigers on the Rise, both of which release on Disney+ on Earth Day 2024.

Since Fremantle acquired Wildstar Films in 2022, Vanessa has used sale proceeds to launch the Wildstar Academy to continue the training of female and diverse wildlife film makers that she started with Queens. She is a regular mentor for National Geographic's Field Ready Program and is highly committed to helping train and support more film makers from underrepresented groups to build a successful career in wildlife.
- IMDb mini biography by: Amy Dickens