Stuart Ramsay and Ian Davies

Source: Noah Media

Stuart Ramsay and Ian Davies

Noah Media Group (NMG) has expanded its management team adding Wise Owl Films and Initialize Films execs and promoting exec producer Simon Corney.

Ian Davies has joined the 14 Peaks and Finding Jack Charlton indie as senior producer for film, from Outlander indie Initialize Films, where his credits include God Help the Girl, The English Surgeon and ’71. He also co-created Boudica, the production and finance house for female-driven films.

Stuart Ramsay joins NMG as senior development producer, having previously worked at Lime Pictures-backed Wise Owl as development executive and series producer.

His credits include David Jason’s Great British Inventions for More 4 and When Bob Marley Came To Britain for BBC2.

Both Ramsay and Davies’ roles have been newly-created roles at NMG.

In his newly-minted position of director of production and development, Corney will be responsible for development strategy, identifying opportunities across all lines of business to drive Noah’s ambitions to deliver premium documentaries. He will continue to report into chief exec John McKenna.

Corney has been an executive producer at the sports-focused firm for five years, responsible for the day-to-day development, production and delivery of projects for buyers including Netflix, Fifa, Channel 4 and the BBC.

Elsewhere, Neil Kirkham has been appointed NMG’s finance director, effective immediately. He joins after eight years at All3Media, most recently as head of commercial finance in the super-indie’s distribution arm.

Corney told Broadcast NMG wants to “broaden its horizons” in the factual space and has a number of true crime and “stranger-than-fiction” projects currently in development.

Among the feature docs it is working on are boxing-focused biopic Hitman: The Ricky Hatton Story and Formula 1 rivalry feature Villeneuve Pironi. Both are partnerships with Sky Studios with NBCUniversal handling international distribution.

“Our development slate is bulging with exciting ideas for documentaries, series and formats across sport, true crime, music and many other genres – nothing is off the table,” Corney added.

“We want to position ourselves as one of the leading documentary TV and film producers in the country to start with, and then go global.”

Corney said that Ramsay’s hire will “turbocharge” development within NMG and his track record in music docs supports the indie’s ambition to produce music-led factual formats.

This article first appeared in Screen’s sister title Broadcast.