After reading Tobi’s newsletters for so long, I feel so honoured to share this late Sunday night with you. As you prepare for the week ahead, maybe you’ve just finished cooking your lunch for tomorrow, I want to encourage you and talk to you about persevering in your career. To do that I need to talk about myself and my experience, so take my hand and come with me on a little journey. Aside from the work I do writing articles and hosting events, I am a development executive working in comedy and drama for a television production company. I love my job and I love the people I work with. But let me tell you, friends, working in TV requires a lot more mental fortitude than I ever thought it would.
Oh, now please don’t mistake me. I am very fortunate to be in the position I’m in, but I want to be honest with you. To do that I first need to explain what it is a development executive actually does. In a nutshell, I find screenwriters whose projects I want to develop and then, when they’re ready, I take those projects to commissioners at broadcasters (BBC, C4, Netflix etc) with the hope that they’ll want to produce the idea.