Meet the team.

In 2008, Jane Root founded Nutopia. Known for award-winning documentary series on a global scale, Nutopia created a new genre of television, the “mega-doc,” which combines epic cinematography and action-driven drama with A-list talent. Nutopia has become synonymous with high-quality content for a diverse group of broadcast and streaming platforms, including Netflix, Disney+, CNN, National Geographic, BBC, PBS, HBO Max and A+E Networks. Prior to founding Nutopia, Jane was president of Discovery Networks and Controller of BBC2, where she commissioned shows such as “The Office” and “Dragons’ Den.”

Jane was a co-founder of Wall to Wall Television, where she guided the company through its first 10 years. Upcoming projects include “Limitless with Chris Hemsworth” and “Pole to Pole” with Will Smith. Nutopia has also produced “Welcome to Earth” with Will Smith for Disney+, National Geographic series “One Strange Rock,” “A World of Calm” for HBO Max, “The Last Czars” for Netflix, and Emmy® Award-winning series “How We Got To Now” and “America: The Story Of Us” for PBS.

Carl has been Managing Director of Nutopia since 2012 and is experienced in the film and television industries internationally. He has an honours degree in law and qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Price Waterhouse, London.

His first foray into film production was the James Bond franchise before making feature films around the world, eventually spending over a decade in Los Angeles working for the major studios of Disney, Universal, Fox, Columbia Pictures and HBO, where films included Con Air, Jungle 2 Jungle, The Siege, The Jungle Book and K-Pax.

On returning to the UK, he spent several years as Group Managing Director running a former London Stock Exchange listed real estate and engineering group, after raising funds to take it private, before returning to the media industry in joining Nutopia. He has since negotiated the commercial terms of its major commissions with its key broadcast/streaming clients in the US and UK, agreements with talent and partners, and oversees the day-to-day operations and finances of the company.

Simon Willgoss leads Nutopia’s creative operations alongside CEO Jane Root. He is responsible for driving strategy, managing external partnerships and overseeing the company’s development and production output.

Simon first joined Nutopia in 2008 and was part of the team who pioneered the “mega-doc” genre with the 12-hour America: The Story of Us for History. He returned in 2015 to take up the Head of Development role and later EVP. Since then he has helped to conceive, develop, or launch over 250 hours of premium factual content, including some of television’s biggest-ever unscripted series, such as Limitless with Chris Hemsworth and Welcome To Earth with Will Smith for National Geographic/Disney+. His other credits span genres from blue chip science and history – like Babies, The Last Czars, and Blood, Sex and Royalty for Netflix – to docuseries like A World of Calm (HBO Max), The World According to Jeff Goldblum (Disney+), and The Royal Mob (Sky History).

Simon is also an Emmy-nominated producer, and in 2023 was named one of Realscreen’s inaugural Factual Under 40, which recognizes rising executives in the unscripted and non-fiction screen content industry aged 40 and under, via nominations from industry peers.

Sam Fernandes oversees the day-to-day running of the development team across all genres. Joining Nutopia in 2015, Sam has been instrumental in developing much of Nutopia’s landmark premium content, which has recently included “Welcome to Earth” with Will Smith for Disney+, “The World According to Jeff Goldblum” for Disney+, “Vendetta: Truth, Lies and the Mafia” for Netflix, and upcoming series like docudrama franchise “African Queens” for Netflix and “Limitless with Chris Hemsworth” for Disney+. Prior to joining Nutopia, Sam was a broadcast writer at Canada’s CTV News Channel.

Caroline McCool has worked in the TV and film industry for over 25 years and has headed up some of the most iconic and much-loved series franchises such as The Apprentice, MasterChef, and Grand Designs as well consulting on the US Apprentice.

Caroline’s career started at Wall to Wall Television where she first met Jane Root. Having trained at The National TV and Film School, she went on to work for a number of leading UK independent production companies heading up their production slates, delivering premium drama-doc, specialist factual and natural history content to US and UK networks.

Caroline later reconnected with Jane to join Nutopia as Head of Production in 2015. She oversees all of Nutopia output including Limitless with Chris Hemsworth, Pole to Pole with Will Smith for Disney+, WWII with Tom Hanks for History Channel, as well as the acclaimed The Last Czars for Netflix, Jack the Ripper: Written in Blood for SKY and White House for Fox Nation.

Sou Pang brings over 25 years of financial, tax and strategic experience in TV and distribution to her role heading the team at Nutopia. Since she arrived in 2017, she has restructured the department and implemented procedures to support the company’s rapid growth.

Before joining Nutopia, Sou worked in corporate finance for over 20 years including 14 years as Head of Finance, Group Tax and Treasury at All3Media Group working on numerous acquisitions and start-ups. She also held a senior finance role at Chrysalis Group PLC overseeing the finance functions across a number of production and distribution companies in the TV division.

Sou is responsible for all company financial reporting and production finance. Sou is a fellow member of ACCA, the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants.

Sophie Mautner has worked at Nutopia since 2015, when she joined as production manager to the Development team and to support company operations. Her role has expanded substantially to encompass a wider responsibility for Nutopia’s operations, community, training and development, and working alongside the Talent and Marketing teams.