The Ink Factory Staffs Up With Former Film4 Exec

The Night Manager producers The Ink Factory is staffing up in London in a bid to significantly expand its development, production and commercials teams and push into the digital arena.

The company has hired former Film4 exec Anna Higgs, who most recently worked as creative director at global digital channel NOWNESS. She’ll join as head of story worlds and marketing and will work alongside Emma Broughton, Head of Development and the rest of the Ink Factory team.

Sophie Johnston and Arielle Gottlieb join Broughton’s team as script execs. Both joined The Ink Factory last month and they will work across development with a focus on John Le Carré’s library and future projects.

Higgs will lead on strategy for, and execution of, the building of film and TV projects into fully realized immersive narratives in digital media. She will also be tasked with growing the company’s digital team and overseeing audience development and marketing functions.

While at NOWNESS, Higgs oversaw creative and growth strategy. Before that, she was commissioning editor at Film4’s former digital strand where she worked on Ben Wheatley’s A Field in England and Lenny Abrhamson’s Frank.

Johnston’s previous roles include script editing long-running UK police drama The Bill before joining Kudos, where she oversaw scripts on Hustle and Foyle’s War.

Gottlieb, who has more than a decade’s worth of experience in TV drama in London and Canada, previously script edited Hooten and the Lady for Red Planet Pictures and has worked at companies such as Nutopia, Euston Films, MakeFilm, FineLine Features and TVO.

“Anna, Sophie and Arielle joining our team reinforces our continued commitment to storytelling in film and television and beyond and to deepening audience engagement by extending storytelling worlds into the digital domain,” said The Ink Factory co-CEOs Stephen and Simon Cornwell. “We are continuing to explore narrative in creative, boundary-pushing ways and we are thrilled to be working with a collection of the best in the industry on developing our offering.”

Higgs said: “I’m hugely excited to be joining Simon, Stephen and their team in building upon their fantastic track record. I am looking forward to helping shape an innovative media company that won’t just be fit for today’s ever-changing landscape, but will be industry leading in its ambitions by bringing together world-class immersive storytelling, digital exploration and audience-facing work.”