One World Media: Trustees

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Myles Wickstead (Chair)

Myles Wickstead joined the One World Media board as Chair in 2009.

Myles Wickstead was, from early 2004 to late 2005, Head of Secretariat to the Commission for Africa. He has a long history of involvement with, and working in, Africa. Between 1993 and 1997 he was based in Nairobi as Head of the British Development Division in Eastern Africa, responsible for British Government development programmes in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. He coordinated the 1997 Government White Paper 'Eliminating World Poverty: A Challenge for the 21st Century'; served on the Board of the World Bank (and as Development Counsellor at the British Embassy) in Washington from 1997 to 2000; and from 2000 to 2004 was based in Addis Ababa as British Ambassador to Ethiopia and Djibouti.

Having left Government service in late 2005, Myles' portfolio now includes: Visiting Professor (International Relations) at the Open University; Senior Advisor to the Africa Unit (Association of Commonwealth Universities); Board Chair of CONCERN UK and Independent Vice-Chair of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy; and Board member/Trustee of the Baring Foundation, the Tropical Health and Education Trust (THET), the University of Ulster UNESCO Centre, the Crown Agents Foundation, the Development Studies Association, the Comic Relief International Grants Committee, International Inspiration and the Advisory Council of Wilton Park.

Myles has degrees from the Universities of St Andrews (MA First Class Honours) and Oxford (M.Litt), and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Education by Leeds Met University in July 2009 in recognition of his work on Africa. In the New Years Honours 2006 he was appointed CBE.

Mick Csaky

Mick Csáky joined One World Media's Board of Trustees in 2005.

In 1971, he graduated from the Royal College of Art with an MA in Film & Television Production.

He has produced and directed more than 100 television programmes and executive produced a further 600, many of them international co-productions. The majority of his output has been documentary singles and series, made through his independent film and television production company Antelope. A substantial number of his television programmes have been about social, economic and political issues in Africa and the Middle East.

In 1998, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Television Society, "In recognition of an outstanding contribution to the furtherance of television".

Brendan Gormley

Brendan Gormley MBE joined One World Media's Board of Trustees in 2004. He was educated at Ampleforth College, Strasbourg University and Trinity College Cambridge.

After working as an ‘unattached social worker' with a motorcycle gang in Birmingham, he joined the White Fathers Monastic Order and worked and studied in Ireland and France. He continued his interest in social issues working with travellers and immigrants in both countries, and with teenage drug abusers in London.

Having left the Order and studying at Cambridge he worked in the late 70s and early 80s on environmental and pastoral issues while living in Africa and on urban problems in the Middle East based in Cairo. He established the Arid Lands Information Network now based in Nairobi. For most of the 1990s he was Oxfam's Africa Director and finished his career having been responsible for both Asia and Latin America and instrumental in setting up Oxfam UK's global network of regional offices.

Brendan Gormley became the first Chief Executive of the UK's Disaster Emergency Committee in September 2000. The DEC brings together 13 leading UK international aid organisations at times of major crisis to launch national fundraising appeals with the support of the major broadcasters and is active in promoting high standards and accountability in humanitarian work. Gormley has helped raise several hundred million pounds to enable an effective response to major crises across the world. He served as Chair of Trustees of ACORD and is currently a Trustee of One World Media and the Noel-Buxton Trust.

Phil Harding

Phil Harding is a journalist, broadcaster and media consultant. He joined the Board in 2007. Previously he was an award-winning producer, editor and senior executive at the BBC.

Recently he has written a report for Oxfam on international coverage and the future of U.K. public broadcasting- the Great Global Switch Off. He has also worked with the launch team of the new morning public radio programme on WNYC in New York, and lectured and conducted workshops in Argentina on public broadcasting and political independence.

He has helped devise and is facilitating the BBC's College of Journalism's course for new editorial leaders dealing with issues such as impartiality and defining the ‘public interest'.

He is a Fellow of the Radio Academy and of the Society of Editors. He is a Trustee of the Press Association and of One World Media.

He writes for the Guardian newspaper on the media and on politics. He has also lectured at Wharton Business School on open media and innovation.

At the BBC, Phil held a wide variety of senior editorial jobs. He was Director of English Networks and News for the World Service, Controller of Editorial Policy (responsible for the editorial standards of all BBC output and wrote the BBC's editorial guidelines), Chief Political Advisor, editor of news programmes at Five Live, editor of the Today programme and deputy editor of Panorama.

Phil has led teams that have won numerous Sony Gold awards - the most prestigious radio awards in the U.K. On Panorama he won an Emmy in the United States for his documentary work.

Carol Haslam

Carol Haslam joined the Board of Trustees in the early nineties.

Carol started her career as a lecturer in social studies and as a trainee psychotherapist. All this changed after a period travelling and working in Africa when she worked as a producer at the Ethiopian Educational Mass Media Centre in Addis Ababa. After returning to London in 1971 she joined the BBC as a Producer/Director and gained a wide range of production experience.

In 1981 she was recruited by Jeremy Isaacs to join the start-up team of Commissioning Editors at the new Channel 4. Over the next 5 years she commissioned over 150 single and series documentaries. She was then involved in another channel start-up as Director of Programmes for SuperChannel, a collaboration between ITV and BBC to launch a Pan-European satellite channel.

In 1988 she became Managing Director of Hawkshead, an independent production company specializing in factual programmes and international co-productions, which subsequently became part of the Guardian Media Group and later Endemol. More recently she has been a freelance executive producer and broadcasting consultant.

She has spent considerable time in non-executive roles with a range of trusts and NGOs, including Broadcasting Support Services, WWF, International Broadcasting Trust, Television Trust for the Environment, One World Online, Independent Production Training Fund, Find Your Feet, Wildscreen Trust and One World Media. She was a communications adviser to the Brundtland Commission on Environment and Development and to Global Forum. Carol chaired a number of international festivals including the Edinburgh TV Festival and Wildscreen, and also completed the Senior Executive Programme at the London Business School.

Seetha Kumar joined One World Media's Board of Trustees in 2006.

Born and educated in India, she started her career in New Delhi for a Broadsheet Financial Daily, where she was the first woman to join the newspaper's bureau. In the UK, she initially worked on Channel 4 productions before moving to the BBC, specialising in investigative social and legal documentaries.

Seetha Kumar's various roles at the BBC have included Executive Editor of the BBC's award winning Africa Lives on the BBC season which was the BBC's largest cross-channel, cross-genre and cross-media season to date. She has commissioned programmes including Body Hits, Make Me Honest, the Time of Your Life season, Diet Trials, the Taking Care season, the critically acclaimed and award winning Your Life in Their Hands and the Pan-BBC Domestic Violence season Hitting Home. She was also involved in the Government's review of the BBC's digital services in 2004.

In 2005, Seetha Kumar was appointed Head of HD Television for the BBC. She is now the controller of bbc.co.uk. 

Roger Macdonald

Roger Macdonald joined the Board of Trustees in 2004.

Roger won a scholarship to Hertford College, Oxford University where he obtained an honours degree in Modern History. He works as a writer, broadcaster and consultant, specialising in business, travel, health, law and media.

Roger has extensive experience as a Fleet Street journalist and television producer working for two national newspapers, the London Daily Mail and The Times, two national news agencies, PA and Extel, and for both BBC Television and BBC Radio. The highlights of his varied BBC career included editing the Today programme, producing the Barry Norman film programme and inventing The Travel Show, Breakaway and Going Places.

Later in his career Roger became Head of Marketing and Development for the Press Association (PA). During his tenure, he won the right for PA to provide news for the ITV Teletext franchise for an entire decade, the biggest single contract in its history.

A member of the British Guild of Travel Writers, Roger has written twelve books on history, football, motoring and travel. His recent history of the real Man in the Iron Mask was made into a television documentary for the Discovery Channel.

Chris Rowley

Chris Rowley founded One World Media, then called the One World Broadcasting Trust, in 1987.

After attending Cambridge University he went into studio management, then worked as Programme Scheduler for Rediffusion, Coordinator of ITV Drama, and for Westinghouse Broadcasting in the US.

Upon returning to the UK he became Producer and Deputy Controller of Features, Current Affairs, Children's and Women's programmes at Thames TV.

He moved to the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA), where he was responsible for the mix of ITV programmes including a large increase in local and social action programming. He was particularly concerned with the start of Channel 4 and starting independent producers first on Channel 4 and then on ITV. He was Managing Director of Five TV and Founder/Chairman of various local radio stations.

He is currently the Chairman of two arts trusts and co-founder of the Hand Engraver's Association.

Magda Walter

Magda Walter, who joined One World Media's Board of Trustees in 2003, is an international communications and media consultant and journalism trainer. She is a veteran journalist who covered business, political and international news. She has also worked as a media relations executive for the World Bank and Plan, a leading international children's NGO.

In her 20 years in American television journalism, Magda has worked as a producer and assignment editor for public TV and for CNN in the US. She was also NBC News bureau chief in Moscow and a member of the launch team of business network CNBC Asia in Hong Kong, where she created the daily business advice program "The Winners" and supervised coverage of special events, including the handover of Hong Kong to China and the annual meetings of the World Bank and the IMF.

Since 2003, when she established her own consulting firm, Magda has, among other projects, prepared an extensive review of broadcast strategy for UNICEF global headquarters in New York. She conducted training for journalists in former Soviet republics on professional ethics, coverage of politics, elections and business for the International Centre for Journalists in Washington and Internews. Some of her other clients include the International Women's Media Foundation, the UNDP, the African Development Bank and Amnesty International, where she was acting Media Director in early 2007.

Magda holds two Master's degrees: from the Department of History at Warsaw University and Department of Journalism of Ohio State University. She speaks four languages and has lived in or travelled to over 60 countries.