National Geographic hires 72 Films senior exec Cate Hall to drive global factual commissioning strategy

National Geographic has appointed 72 Films senior exec Cate Hall to its UK commissioning team.  

Hall will take on the commissioning editor role recently vacated by Simon Raikes with immediate effect.

She will drive the development and commissioning of high-profile, globally appealing factual programming for Disney+, Hulu and Nat Geo’s linear channels, reporting into Nat Geo’s senior vice president, Bengt Anderson.  

Hall joins from 72 Films where she served a second stint as head of specialist factual from 2023.

She previously served a two-year term as the indie’s specialist factual lead before joining BBC Studios’ Documentary Unit as its creative director of development.  

While at 72 Films, she worked across production, development, idea generation, pitching and new business, and her credits include Britain and the Blitz (Netflix) and the second series of 007: Road to a Million (Amazon Prime Video).  

At BBCS, Hall has been looking after commissions including Aileen: Queen of the Serial Killers (Netflix) and Inside Our Minds with Chris Packham (BBC2). Other credits to her name include exec producing The Apprentice (BBC1) and The Rise of the Murdoch Dynasty (BBC2).