Off the Fence expands its management team and expands production capacity

Off The Fence has announced that it is restructuring its management team and expanding its production capacity to meet the surge in demand following its 2021 Academy Award for Netflix’s My Octopus Teacher." Part of the expansion includes the promotion of Karen Meehan, who will now be Chief operating officer from Head of Production. "OTF is a fantastic company, populated with wonderful people, and I am looking forward to helping drive its new operational strategy and implementing ways in which our shared vision can become a reality," Meehan said.

In her new role, Meehan will collaborate with OTF’s Amsterdam-based CEO Bo Stehmeier and Bristol-based chief creative officer Allison Bean to set the company’s operational strategy, manage its budget across its four locations in Bristol, London, Amsterdam, and Toronto, and help implement organization-wide goal-setting, performance management, productivity and secure infrastructure for its new three-pillar business model. She will also work to ensure that OTF’s employees operate in an inclusive environment, ensuring not only organizational outcomes are achieved, but that team members work in a corporate culture that respects and encourages diversity, professional development, and mental and physical welfare.  

“For the last two decades, our Bristol production base has quietly been making some of the best wildlife programming in the world — a fact that was finally recognized last year with the Oscar for "My Octopus Teacher,'" Allison Bean CCO said. "Karen’s appointment and this investment in our facilities will enable us to bring more, and even better, non-scripted storytelling to the world, produced by a more diverse team in a greener, kinder production environment.”

With more than three decades of experience in programming for the world’s top broadcasters, including the BBC, PBS, Discovery, National Geographic, ITV, and Animal Planet, she will also oversee the renovation and expansion of OTF Bristol’s facilities. Two new buildings are currently being renovated and, once completed, will increase capacity from six to 14 in-house editing suites, with the possibility of expanding this to 20 suites by repurposing office space. The project will also deliver an additional 13 offices with room to house 68 people, along with next-generation post-production facilities with ingesting stations, online, graphics, and grading suites. The expansion of the OTF Bristol production hub forms part of the ZDF Enterprises-owned company’s new creative direction, which was recently announced by CCO Allison Bean & CEO Bo Stehmeier. To respond to the evolving needs of its global client base, which spans both traditional broadcasters and the streaming giants.