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Rural Media Announces New CEO Grant Black 

Rural Media, the award-winning Hereford-based charity and production company, is delighted to announce the appointment of Grant Black as its new Chief Executive Officer and Creative Director. 

Grant has spent 10 years at Rural Media and previously served as the organisation’s Creative Director and Deputy CEO. He steps into the role as founder Nic Millington prepares to retire next year after more than 30 years of dedicated leadership. 

In a statement, he said: 
“Over the past 10 years, I've been privileged to support Rural Media's mission to use creativity and media to improve people's lives. I'm thrilled to now be leading the organisation into its next chapter. We have brilliant projects underway, from P.O.V., which empowers rural young people to share their stories, to the BFI Film Academy, which helps young people make their first films. We'll be building on the success of our commercial arm Rural Studios, which creates professional content for major brands and broadcasters, and launching our new creative hub StoryPoint in Hereford next year. It's an incredibly exciting time to be stepping into this role.” 

Nic Millington said: 
“Founding and developing Rural Media and its subsidiaries over the last 34 years has been an extraordinary and wonderful journey.  None of this would have been possible without the sustained support of organisations such as Arts Council England, Herefordshire Council, British Film Council, local and national trusts & foundations.  My deepest thanks go to all of Rural Media’s past and present highly skilled colleagues, and crucially, to the individuals and communities that have used their voices and shared their stories to help create a fairer and more inclusive society.” 

Rural Media’s Board of Trustees also shared their support for the transition. 

David Holdsworth, Chair of the Board, said: 
“Grant has a proven track record and is without doubt the person to build on Nic's work and make Rural Media a driver of the creative economy in Herefordshire while continuing to give young people such vital opportunities.   

Nic was the original founder of the charity and has devoted much of working life to building it and making it so successful. His legacy is enormous and is now in ambitious and safe hands.”