Pact’s Dawn McCarthy-Simpson has been appointed an MBE in this year’s Queen’s Birthday Honours List for services to Exports.
Director of International Strategy, McCarthy-Simpson has been at Pact for 10 years and was previously Head of Nations and Regions. Prior to Pact, she launched Yorkshire’s first local terrestrial television channel and the UK’s first short film channel which aired on Sky.
While at Pact McCarthy-Simpson has launched three apps to help producers to expand their businesses globally. She has also been instrumental in forging co-production treaties and agreements across the world, most recently with China and Brazil. In 2016, she also created and launched the Pact Export Accelerator programme with the aim of supporting independent production companies to double their export revenue by 2020. This programme has since been white labelled and adopted by other industries.
Chief Executive of Pact, John McVay, said: “I am thrilled that Dawn’s hard work on behalf of our sector has been recognised. She is always full of great, creative ideas that can help our sector achieve greater global success”.
Elsewhere in the Birthday Honours List, Ukraine-born British businessman Leonard Blavatnik, the founder of Access Industries, was given a knighthood for services to philanthropy. Access Industries recently launched an entertainment division, run by former BBC director of TV Danny Cohen, which has invested in indies including Bad Wolf.
Cilla Snowball, the CEO and Group Chairman of ad agency AMV BBDO received a damehood.
Billy Connolly also received a knighthood for services to entertainment and charity. Damehoods went to actresses Olivia de Havilland and June Whitfield. David Walliams, Patricia Hodge and Natasha Kaplinsky received OBEs.
Staff Reporter
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