Hello Sunshine exec Sarah Lazenby is exiting after four years to join The Great British Bake Off indie Love Productions.
Lazenby has been named creative director at Sky-owned Love, succeeding Kieran Smith, who has left after nearly two decades with the company.
As executive vice-president, unscripted UK at Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine, Lazenby oversaw unscripted shows such as Netflix’s F1: The Academy and Channel 4’s Renovation Rescue and Sophie Morgan’s Fight to Fly.
Hello Sunshine has not yet named her successor.
Lazenby previously oversaw commissioning of Bake Off as a C4 entertainment and factual entertainment commissioning editor and head of features and formats.
Other C4 roles she commissioned include Alan Carr’s Chatty Man, Naked Attraction, Flirty Dancing and Joe Lycett’s Got Your Back.
Lazenby has also been showrunner on a trio of C4 cookery formats: Gordon Ramsay’s F Word, Cookalong Live and Jamie Oliver’s Fowl Dinners.
Another former C4 exec, Ralph Lee, who took over from Richard McKerrow at the reins at Love last year, praised Lazenby’s “great energy, great creative instincts and exceptional track record in delivering bold, culturally resonant and successful formats”.
Lazenby described Love as a “powerhouse British brand” and said she was attracted by its “atmospheric feelgood formats”.
Meanwhile, Love has named its chief operating officer.
Helen Northrop joins from Sky, where she spent 13 years, the last six of them as director of commercial affairs, content.
