Sue Woodford-Hollick

Template:Short description Template:EngvarB Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox person Susan Mary Woodford-Hollick, Baroness Hollick, OBE (born 16 May 1945<ref name="Woman's Hour" />) is a British businesswoman and consultant with a wide-ranging involvement in broadcasting and the arts. A former investigative journalist, she worked for many years in television (as Sue Woodford), where her roles included producer/director of World in Action<ref>Sue Woodford page at IMDb.</ref> for Granada TV and founding commissioning editor of Multicultural Programmes for Channel Four.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> As a campaigner for human rights, world health, literacy, and the arts, she serves as trustee or patron of a range of charities and foundations. She is founder and co-director of Bringing up Baby Ltd,<ref>Management team, Bringing Up Baby.</ref> a childcare company. Other causes and organisations with which she is associated include the African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF),<ref name=AMREF /> the Leader's Quest Foundation,<ref>LQ Foundation Trustees, Leader's Quest. Template:Webarchive.</ref> Complicité theatre company, Reprieve, the Free Word Centre, the Runnymede Trust and the SI Leeds Literary Prize.<ref name=SILeedsA>"Sue Woodford-Hollick", SI Leeds Literary Prize. Retrieved 24 March 2024.</ref> Of English and Trinidadian heritage, she is married to Clive Hollick, Baron Hollick, with whom she has three daughters.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Early life

Sue Woodford-Hollick was educated at the University of Sussex<ref name=US>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and is the daughter of Ulric Cross, a former High Court judge in Trinidad, Trinidadian High Commissioner to London (1990–93) and much-decorated RAF squadron leader in World War II<ref>"Susan Mary Woodford-Hollick, Lady Hollick (1945–), Arts administrator", National Portrait Gallery.</ref><ref>"Ulric Cross (1917–), Judge", National Portrait Gallery.</ref> (who inspired the 2018 film Hero by Frances-Anne Solomon).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> On BBC Woman's Hour on 8 August 2012, in the feature "Family Secrets" for which she was interviewed by her daughter Abigail,<ref>"Interviews", Abigail Hollick website.</ref> Woodford-Hollick spoke about growing up believing that she had been adopted by the white parents she knew as "Auntie May and Uncle Dick", only to discover in her twenties that her natural father was a Caribbean war hero and that her much older "sister" was in fact her mother, who had been forced to marry someone else: "Illegitimacy was not accepted in those days, and prejudice against black people was rife everywhere."<ref name="Woman's Hour">"Family secrets, older women workers and Cook the Perfect tiramisu", Woman's Hour, BBC Radio 4, 8 August 2012.</ref> Woodford-Hollick contributed the memoir "Who I Was Then and Who I Am Now" to the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Career

In 1969, Woodford-Hollick joined Granada Television in Manchester as a newsreader and presenter/reporter on the regional news magazine programme, and she went on to become one of the few women to produce/direct the flagship current affairs programme World in Action.<ref name="SILeedsB" /><ref>Steve Bryant, "World in Action (1963–98)", BFI Screenonline.</ref>

In 1981, she joined Channel 4 Television as the first Commissioning Editor for multi-cultural programming, one of the priorities of the new channel, where she commissioned a range of programmes to reflect the diversity of Britain's minority ethnic communities.<ref name="SILeedsB" /><ref>Clive James Nwonka, "Channel Four and the Emergence of Independent Black British Filmmaking" Template:Webarchive. Brunel University, 2012.</ref><ref name=FreeWord>About Us – Trustees, Free Word.</ref> Her work at Channel 4 was described by Farrukh Dhondy as "revolutionary".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Consultancy and voluntary work

She has been involved throughout her life with many campaigns for human rights and diversity.<ref name=US /> Between 1993 and 2000, she chaired Index on Censorship, the international magazine for free speech,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> of which she remains a patron.<ref name="SILeedsB" />

In September 2000, she succeeded Trevor Phillips as Chair of the London Arts Board, and on the creation of a single funding body for the arts in England, Woodford-Hollick was appointed in 2002 to the national council of the new organisation, Arts Council England (ACE),<ref>"ACE Announced the New Council" Template:Webarchive, The British Theatre Guide, 2 June 2002.</ref> and to chair its London regional council,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> which she did for seven years.<ref name="SILeedsB" />

She has been an adviser on Caribbean affairs to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO),<ref name="SILeedsB" /> and in 1998 she served on the Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain, an independent inquiry set up by the Runnymede Trust and chaired by Lord Parekh.<ref>"Embracing the need to build an inclusive society", The Guardian, 11 October 2000.</ref> She has also served on the boards of a wide range of organisations, including Talawa Theatre Company,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> the Theatre Museum,<ref name=Reprieve /> Tate Members, the Royal Commonwealth Society Contemporary Dance Trust, the English National Opera and the University of Westminster.

She is currently a trustee of the African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF),<ref name=AMREF>"Lady Sue Woodford-Hollick", Who We Are, AMREF. Template:Webarchive</ref> Africa's largest health NGO, based in Nairobi, Kenya. She chairs the Leader's Quest Foundation<ref>LQ Foundation Trustees Template:Webarchive, Leader's Quest.</ref> and has served as a trustee of Complicite theatre company and of Reprieve.<ref name=Reprieve>"Lady Sue Woodford Hollick, Ambassador", Reprieve.</ref> She is also a patron of the Runnymede Trust<ref name=Runnymede>Patrons, Runnymede.</ref> and a trustee of the Free Word Centre.<ref name=FreeWord /> In addition, she is a patron of the SI Leeds Literary Prize, an award for unpublished fiction for Black and Asian women in the UK.<ref name=SILeedsB>"Sue Woodford-Hollick" Template:Webarchive, SI Leeds Literary Prize.</ref>

In April 2012, in Port of Spain, Trinidad, she announced the inauguration of the Hollick Arvon Caribbean Writers Prize, sponsored by the Hollick Family Charitable Trust and the Arvon Foundation, in association with the NGC Bocas Lit Fest, an award to allow a Caribbean writer living in the Anglophone region and writing in English, and who has not yet published a full-length book, to devote time to advancing a work in progress.<ref>"Announcing the Hollick Arvon Caribbean Writers Prize", Caribseek News, 1 May 2012. Template:Webarchive.</ref>

She was named as one of the supporters of the Women's Prize for Fiction 2013.<ref>"The Women's Prize for Fiction 2013 launches with new partners, sponsors and judges", Book Trust, 9 October 2012.</ref><ref>Benedicte Page, "Women's Prize for Fiction to be 'privately funded' for 2013", The Bookseller, 8 October 2012.</ref><ref>"About BWPFF", BAILEYS Women's Prize for Fiction.</ref>

She is a trustee of the foundation announced in December 2014 in memory of cultural theorist Stuart Hall.<ref>Stuart Hall Foundation.</ref><ref>"Goldsmiths Honour Stuart Hall By Naming Building After Him" Template:Webarchive, The Voice, 4 December 2014.</ref><ref>"Goldsmiths renames academic building after Professor Stuart Hall", Goldsmiths, University of London, 11 December 2014.</ref>

Personal life

She is married to the businessman Clive Hollick, Baron Hollick, with whom she has three daughters.<ref name=US />

Woodford-Hollick has two half-siblings whose father was also Ulric Cross: filmmaker Nicola Cross and Richard Finch, an educator who works in South Africa.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Finch has spoken of meeting his father for the first time, when in his forties.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Honours and awards

She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2011 Birthday Honours for services to the arts.<ref>Template:London Gazette</ref><ref>"Queen's Birthday Honours 2011: list in full", The Telegraph, 11 June 2011.</ref> She is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Westminster and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.<ref name="SILeedsB" />

She is regularly included on the Power List of "Britain's 100 Most Influential Black People".<ref name="SILeedsB" /><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In January 2018, she received an honorary doctorate from the University of Sussex.<ref name=US /><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

She is an honorary fellow of Merton College, Oxford.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

External links

• "Susan Mary Woodford-Hollick, Lady Hollick (1945–), Arts administrator", National Portrait Gallery.