Syeda Irtizaali

Director of Unscripted (Interim)
BBC British Broadcasting Corporation

Syeda Irtizaali is currently Interim BBC Director of Unscripted overseeing content slates, strategy and spend across all Unscripted genres. Prior to that, in her role as Editor of Unscripted for the BBC, she worked closely with the teams in
Documentaries, Specialist Factual, Entertainment, Factual Entertainment, Arts, Daytime and Storyville building content across the BBC portfolio. She also oversees hit series The Traitors UK after securing it for the BBC.

Syeda started her career as a journalist with BBC News and went on to work as a producer and executive producer in entertainment, factual entertainment and documentary across several independent production companies including Monkey,
Planet 24, Diverse, At It and Brighter.

She had a substantial stint as a Commissioning Editor for Entertainment and Live Events at Channel 4 and was responsible for commissioning and overseeing hits such as Alan Carr: Chatty Man, The Million Pound Drop, The Last Leg, The Big
Fat Quiz of The Year, The Lateish Show with Mo Gilligan and The Big Narstie Show.

She returned to the BBC in 2020 as Commissioning Editor in Entertainment before being promoted to Portfolio Editor for BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Four and BBC iPlayer within Dan McGolpin’s team overseeing channel and iPlayer content strategy.