Susan Mary Woodford-Hollick, Baroness Hollick, OBE (born 16 May 1945) is a British businesswoman and consultant with a wide-ranging involvement in broadcasting and the arts. A former investigative journalist, she worked for many years in television (as Sue Woodford), where her roles included producer/director of World in ActionSue Woodford page at IMDb. for Granada TV and founding commissioning editor of Multicultural Programmes for Channel Four. As a campaigner for human rights, world health, literacy, and the arts, she serves as trustee or patron of a range of charities and foundations. She is founder and co-director of Bringing up Baby Ltd,Management team, Bringing Up Baby. a childcare company. Other causes and organisations with which she is associated include the African Medical and Research Foundation, the Leader's Quest Foundation,LQ Foundation Trustees, Leader's Quest. . Complicité theatre company, Reprieve, the Free Word Centre, the Runnymede Trust and the SI Leeds Literary Prize."Sue Woodford-Hollick", SI Leeds Literary Prize. Retrieved 24 March 2024. Of English and Trinidadian heritage, she is married to Clive Hollick, Baron Hollick, with whom she has three daughters.
Early life Sue Woodford-Hollick was educated at the University of Sussex and is the daughter of Ulric Cross, a former High Court judge in Trinidad, Trinidadian High Commissioner to London (1990–93) and much-decorated RAF squadron leader in World War II"Susan Mary Woodford-Hollick, Lady Hollick (1945–), Arts administrator", National Portrait Gallery."Ulric Cross (1917–), Judge", National Portrait Gallery. (who inspired the 2018 film Hero by Frances-Anne Solomon). On BBC Woman's Hour on 8 August 2012, in the feature "Family Secrets" for which she was interviewed by her daughter Abigail,"Interviews", Abigail Hollick website. Woodford-Hollick spoke about growing up believing that she had been adopted by the white parents she knew as "Auntie May and Uncle Dick", only to discover in her twenties that her natural father was a Caribbean war hero and that her much older "sister" was in fact her mother, who had been forced to marry someone else: "Illegitimacy was not accepted in those days, and prejudice against black people was rife everywhere.""Family secrets, older women workers and Cook the Perfect tiramisu", Woman's Hour, BBC Radio 4, 8 August 2012. Woodford-Hollick contributed the memoir "Who I Was Then and Who I Am Now" to the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby.
Career In 1969, Woodford-Hollick joined Granada Television in Manchester as a newsreader and presenter/reporter on the regional news magazine programme, and she went on to become one of the few women to produce/direct the flagship current affairs programme World in Action.Steve Bryant, "World in Action (1963–98)", BFI Screenonline.
In 1981, she joined Channel 4 Television as the first Commissioning Editor for multi-cultural programming, one of the priorities of the new channel, where she commissioned a range of programmes to reflect the diversity of Britain's minority ethnic communities.Clive James Nwonka, "Channel Four and the Emergence of Independent Black British Filmmaking" . Brunel University, 2012.About Us – Trustees, Free Word. Her work at Channel 4 was described by Farrukh Dhondy as "revolutionary".
Consultancy and voluntary work She has been involved throughout her life with many campaigns for human rights and diversity. Between 1993 and 2000, she chaired Index on Censorship, the international magazine for free speech, of which she remains a patron.
In September 2000, she succeeded Trevor Phillips as Chair of the London Arts Board, and on the creation of a single funding body for the arts in England, Woodford-Hollick was appointed in 2002 to the national council of the new organisation, Arts Council England,"ACE Announced the New Council" , The British Theatre Guide, 2 June 2002. and to chair its London regional council, which she did for seven years.
She has been an adviser on Caribbean affairs to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and in 1998 she served on the Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain, an independent inquiry set up by the Runnymede Trust and chaired by Lord Parekh."Embracing the need to build an inclusive society", The Guardian, 11 October 2000. She has also served on the boards of a wide range of organisations, including Talawa Theatre Company, the Theatre Museum, Tate Members, the Royal Commonwealth Society Contemporary Dance Trust, the English National Opera and the University of Westminster.
She is currently a trustee of the African Medical and Research Foundation,"Lady Sue Woodford-Hollick", Who We Are, AMREF. Africa's largest health NGO, based in Nairobi, Kenya. She chairs the Leader's Quest FoundationLQ Foundation Trustees , Leader's Quest. and has served as a trustee of Complicite theatre company and of Reprieve."Lady Sue Woodford Hollick, Ambassador", Reprieve. She is also a patron of the Runnymede TrustPatrons, Runnymede. and a trustee of the Free Word Centre. In addition, she is a patron of the SI Leeds Literary Prize, an award for unpublished fiction for Black and Asian women in the UK."Sue Woodford-Hollick" , SI Leeds Literary Prize.
In April 2012, in Port of Spain, Trinidad, she announced the inauguration of the Hollick Arvon Caribbean Writers Prize, sponsored by the Hollick Family Charitable Trust and the Arvon Foundation, in association with the NGC Bocas Lit Fest, an award to allow a Caribbean writer living in the Anglophone region and writing in English, and who has not yet published a full-length book, to devote time to advancing a work in progress."Announcing the Hollick Arvon Caribbean Writers Prize", Caribseek News, 1 May 2012. .
She was named as one of the supporters of the Women's Prize for Fiction 2013."The Women's Prize for Fiction 2013 launches with new partners, sponsors and judges", Book Trust, 9 October 2012.Benedicte Page, "Women's Prize for Fiction to be 'privately funded' for 2013", The Bookseller, 8 October 2012."About BWPFF", BAILEYS Women's Prize for Fiction.
She is a trustee of the foundation announced in December 2014 in memory of cultural theorist Stuart Hall.Stuart Hall Foundation."Goldsmiths Honour Stuart Hall By Naming Building After Him" , The Voice, 4 December 2014."Goldsmiths renames academic building after Professor Stuart Hall", Goldsmiths, University of London, 11 December 2014.
Personal life She is married to the businessman Clive Hollick, Baron Hollick, with whom she has three daughters.
Woodford-Hollick has two half-siblings whose father was also Ulric Cross: filmmaker Nicola Cross and Richard Finch, an educator who works in South Africa. Finch has spoken of meeting his father for the first time, when in his forties.
Honours and awards She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2011 Birthday Honours for services to the arts."Queen's Birthday Honours 2011: list in full", The Telegraph, 11 June 2011. She is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Westminster and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
She is regularly included on the Power List of "Britain's 100 Most Influential Black People".
In January 2018, she received an honorary doctorate from the University of Sussex.
She is an honorary fellow of Merton College, Oxford.
References
External links "Susan Mary Woodford-Hollick, Lady Hollick (1945–), Arts administrator", National Portrait Gallery.