Blue Ant Studios acquisitions boss Lilla Hurst will exit the Canadian business after three years, we can reveal.Hurst is set to exit her role as Blue Ant’s Global Head Acquisitions & Content Strategy in December and is planning to take a career sabbatical in 2026 before re-entering the international TV space.The London-based exec has been with Blue Ant since the company acquired her distribution biz, Drive Media Rights, in 2022. Her co-founder at Drive, Ben Barrett, remains as Blue Ant’s Global Head of Content Financing and Partnerships.Hurst’s exit is understood to be entirely amicable and as such she is helping with the process of finding her replacement, we hear. A global search firm has already been engaged, and Hurst told key suppliers in a note that the “hope is that I will be there to hand over the reigns to them in order to provide as smooth a transition as possible.”Her exit comes soon after Michael MacMillan’s Blue Ant acquired the unscripted TV assets of Boat Rocker Studios and went public, listing in Toronto. Hurst’s exit is not connected to that development.“I’ve loved working at Blue Ant and am departing in what is going to be a very exciting era for the company as it goes public and looks to consolidate its position in the TV universe even further,” she said. “I’ll also be leaving behind my wonderful team in Toronto, who I have no doubt will continue to do great work and are in a great place to support my replacement when they arrive.”She has worked in television since 1997, originally at British Pathe. She worked at TVF International as Head of Sales before a role as Head of Acquisitions and Co-Productions at RDF Television. Later, she joined a then-fledgling Channel 5 (now 5) as Head of Co-Production before launching her own business, Lillavision, in 2008. Hurst joined forces with former Zig Zag Productions commercial chief Barrett in 2013 to launch Drive, which became a specialist in content financing, especially in the unscripted space. Blue Ant swooped for the company nine years later.Blue Ant sells shows such as Channel 4’s upcoming Taylor Swift documentary, news of which we revealed in July, and Peacock doc Matthew Perry: A Hollywood Tragedy, which was shopped to ITVX in the UK. The company is also set to launch Love Nature natural history series Wild Side of the Moon and true-crime six-parter Death in the Wild.Hurst will be at MIPCOM Cannes with Blue Ant before taking the sabbatical.
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