Leadership Changes at Tigress Productions

BRISTOL/LONDON: Tigress Productions has revealed a number of changes to its management team, including appointing Dragonfly’s Sarah Swingler as managing director following the resignation of Dick Colthurst.

Colthurst, who has served as Tigress’s managing director for the past 12 years, is retiring from the television industry in the fall. Taking his place will be Swingler, who has been an executive producer at sister company Dragonfly for the last six years. Among her credits are Channel 4’s One Born Every Minute and The Hotel. Since 2012, Swingler has led Dragonfly’s regions and nations operation, which she will continue to consult on in her new role.

Tigress has also hired Catherine Welton, previously an in-house exec producer at RDF West, as creative director. That position was recently held by Pete Lawrence, who decided to leave the company earlier this year to purse his own TV and writing projects. Welton has also served as a features and factual entertainment executive at the BBC, where she worked on such shows as Hairy Bikers Asian Adventure. Earlier in her career, she was an exec producer for Endemol Shine Group’s Shine TV and Remarkable Television.

Colthurst commented: “The realization that I could soon be traveling to meetings in London on a Senior Railcard makes it time to hand over to someone new and Sarah will do a brilliant job taking Tigress forward.

“I doubt many people have had as much fun going in to work every day as I’ve had over the last 35 years so I feel incredibly fortunate. I’ll miss the fantastic team at Tigress and the hugely talented supporting cast in Bristol, but my wife and I are off to live in the Alps so it’s not so bad really.”

Richard Johnston, the CEO at Endemol Shine UK, said: “I’d like to thank Dick on behalf of us all for the contribution he has made to build Tigress to the company it is today and we wish him all the best in his greatly deserved retirement from the TV industry. Over the last few years, together Dick and Pete have grown the programming slate significantly. We’re thrilled to have Sarah and Catherine on board; they both have the skills and experience to lead Tigress to even greater heights.”