Executive Producer
After reading English at Balliol College, Oxford, Derek’s first professional work in drama was as Assistant Director on a production of Three Sisters at the Greenwich and Albery Theatres, after which he spent two years as an Assistant Director at The National Theatre. Leaving the National, he directed many new plays in London, including Ivan Klima’s Games (Gate Theatre), Rod Williams’ No Remission (Lyric Theatre Hammersmith), Patrick’s Day (BAC) and The Life of the World to Come (Almeida Theatre). During this time he taught acting and was a guest director at many of London’s leading drama schools (Central, Drama Centre, Rose Bruford).

Invited to join BBC Drama Serials as a script editor, he worked on a range of dramas including The Ice House (BBC1) and the six-part costume drama Aristocrats, for BBC1 and WGBH. He created the BBC series Waiting for the Whistle, producing and directing Peter Bowker’s The King and Us and producing Harry Pearson’s Staying Up.

Asked to develop a new drama with Peter Bowker for Red Productions in Manchester, he left the BBC in 2001. He produced Flesh and Blood for Red Productions/BBC2 for which he received a BAFTA TV Award nomination for Best Single Drama. The project also won European Fiction Film of the year at the Prix Europa in Berlin in 2003, and two Royal Television Society awards. (Best Writer and Best Actor).

After this, and also for Red Productions, he produced Sparkhouse, Sally Wainwright’s powerful three part reimagining of Wuthering Heights, for BBC1.

Michele Buck invited him to join Granada in 2001, where he worked as Script Executive on Granada’s new Poirot adaptations, including Kevin Elyot’s Death on the Nile and Five Little Pigs, and on the Emmy-nominated third series of Hornblower, all for ITV1.

While at Granada he developed and produced Abi Morgan’s multi- award-winning Sex Traffic for Channel 4, for which he won a BAFTA TV Award. Directed by David Yates, this unflinching look at sex trafficking won an unprecedented eight BAFTA and four RTS awards. It also won a number of international awards, including the Jury Prize for Best Miniseries at the Reims International TV Festival, two major Prix Italia awards and a Golden Nymph at the Monte Carlo Television Festival.

Derek joined Kudos as Executive Producer in 2005. With Jane Featherstone he was co-executive producer on Abi Morgan’s Tsunami: The Aftermath (BBC2/HBO). He has developed and been Executive Producer on Noel Clarke's West 10 LDN (BBC 3), on Allsop and Williams' comedy series Plus One (Channel 4) and Peter Bowker’s highly acclaimed Iraq drama Occupation, (BBC1) which recently won the Berlin Prix Europa for best Drama series or Serial, the FIPA D'Or Grand Prize for Best Drama and the Broadcasting Press Guild Award for Best Series or Serial. Finally in June 2010, Occupation won Derek his second BAFTA for Best Drama Serial. His current productions as Executive Producer for Kudos include an original new series set in Glasgow, Harriet Braun's Lip Service due to air this autumn on BBC Three, and Abi Morgan's 1950s news series The Hour, for BBC2.