Mike Gunton is the Creative Director of BBC Studios Natural History Unit. After gaining a first class degree in zoology and a doctorate at Bristol and Cambridge Universities Mike joined the BBC in 1983 to work on OU, Science and Children’s programming. Mike joined the Natural History Unit in 1987 to work on David Attenborough’s Trials of Life, producing three programmes. In 1991 he set up an independent television company with Peter Jones; Green Umbrella, where he worked as a director. He re-joined the BBC NHU in 1994 as a series producer and establishing the Units ‘People and Animals’ output. He has been Executive Producer on a number of BBC1 series including Alan Titchmarsh’s British Isles: a Natural History, Steve Leonard’s Ultimate Killers and a number of films with David Attenborough. Mike was also the Series Editor of Natural World from 2001-2004 commissioning around 60 films for the strand. Mike’s most recent projects included the ten part series Life, co-directing the Feature Film One Life and the critically acclaimed series Africa. Mike now works for BBC Worldwide and BBC as Creative Director Factual and The Natural History Unit. He is also the executive producer of BBC1’s Hidden Kingdoms and the upcoming BBC1 programme; Survival.