The Nat Geo exec takes up the role in November

Tom McDonald has been revealed as the new chair of The Grierson Trust, taking over from Lorraine Heggessy in November.

McDonald is executive vice president, National Geographic Content, and before that spent 10 years at the BBC. He has been a producer, series producer and executive producer for well-known UK indies including Wall to Wall and The Garden.

In his new role, McDonald will work closely with the trust’s board and managing director to champion fundraising and drive industry engagement with the UK’s documentary filmmakers.

As well as working to fund-raise and drive up industry engagement in the field of documentary filmmaking, McDonald will head up the British Documentary Awards – also known as the Griersons – now in their 53rd year.

He will also work alongside MD Sylvia Bednarz in overseeing the industry-led Grierson DocLab training programmes run in partnership and collaboration with broadcasters, streamers and more than 20 independent television production companies.

McDonald said: “It is a huge honour to be named Chair of the Grierson Trust. At a time of enormous disruption & uncertainty in the world of documentary, the Trust’s mission is more important than ever.

“I’ve long admired the Trust’s high impact work to nurture new voices in documentary filmmaking and to amplify the very best of global documentary filmmaking, and I can’t wait to work with Sylvia and the board to build on the trust’s incredible work during Lorraine’s [11-year] tenure.