Pippa Harris

Harris is the granddaughter of medical doctor Noël Olivier. She was educated at Oxford High School for Girls and Robinson College, Cambridge, where she graduated with a degree in English in 1989.

Harris started her career as a production assistant at Jacaranda Productions in 1989 and progressed quickly through roles as a script editor for ITV and Channel 4 before becoming development executive at BBC Films. She was then promoted to Executive Producer, BBC Drama Serials. Harris worked on Warriors (1999), Care (2000), The Sleeper (2000) The Way We Live Now (2001) and Love in a Cold Climate (2001).

In 2001, Harris became Head of Drama Commissioning for the BBC, working with Jane Tranter. Her BBC commissions included Cutting It (2002), Flesh and Blood (2002), Daniel Deronda (2002), The Lost Prince (2003) and State of Play (2003).

In 2003, Pippa Harris co-founded Neal Street Productions with partners Sam Mendes and Caro Newling. Since forming the company, Harris has produced several films, including Jarhead (2005), Starter for 10 (2006) and Blood (2012). She has executive produced Things We Lost in the Fire (2007), Revolutionary Road (2008) and Away We Go (2009).

For television, Harris has produced Stuart: A Life Backwards (2007) as well as the frightening psychological thriller, Penny Dreadful created and written by John Logan for Showtime / Sky Atlantic. She also executively produced the critically acclaimed, BAFTA nominated Shakespeare film series, The Hollow Crown (2012) and The Hollow Crown: The War of the Roses (2016), as well as Britannia (2018) which was the first co-production between Sky and Amazon Prime Video in 2018, starring Kelly Reilly, David Morrissey, Zoë Wanamaker, Liana Cornell and Stanley Weber.

She made a cameo appearance in series 15, episode 8 of Call The Midwife as an mourner during the funeral of Sister Monica Joan.

Harris currently serves as the executive producer of the BAFTA and NTA winning series Call the Midwife.

In 2018, Harris was appointed Chair of BAFTA, after a year as the Deputy Chair and she was then appointed BAFTA's VP for Television in 2021.

Pippa is also Chair of The Charleston Trust and is a board member of the Royal Foundation of the Prince and Princess of Wales.

She is the editor of her grandmother's correspondence with poet Rupert Brooke between 1908 and 1915.