Katharina Pietzsch has been appointed as VP of Content Sales at BBC Studios Kids & Family, and Kelly Wood has been appointed as Head of Content Strategy at BBC Studios Kids & Family.

These senior appointments at the heart of Kids & Family round out the new division’s senior management restructure, which is designed to support the division’s ambitious growth plans.

Pietzsch will be in charge of the BBC Studios Kids & Family portfolio’s sales and co-production strategy. In this senior client-facing role, she will work closely with the content and production teams to manage priority accounts, with responsibility for increasing sales revenue and profit targets across co-productions, commissions, and tape sale activity globally.

Wood will lead the high-performing content strategy team, working closely with other BBC Studios Kids & Family leads to define global and local content strategies and roll-out plans for its brands on BBC Studios global channels, third-party services, and digital platforms to ensure each Kids & Family show reaches the widest possible audience.

Pietzsch joins the division from ZDF Studios, where she was a Director in the Junior division, and brings extensive experience in international sales, co-productions, and co-commissions of children’s and family programs.

She was in charge of negotiating pre-sales, co-productions, and commissions for all key-account, pan-national, Scandinavian, and global clients and deals at ZDFS, as well as developing custom projects with selected producers around the world.

Pietzsch began her career at ZDF Studios as a management trainee and has since held positions as Acquisitions Manager for ZDF and KiKA, as well as Sales and Coproduction Director for ZDF S’s kids and family content.

Wood is an expert in the field of BBC Studios Kids & Family. Her previous position as editorial lead at Paramount Kids and Family UK and Ireland saw her overseeing the Nickelodeon brand’s content and programming strategy across the region’s linear and non-linear platforms.

She was in charge of communicating priorities as well as developing and executing content strategies to drive Nickelodeon’s and core franchises’ performance and brand health across all touchpoints. Wood previously worked at Channel 4 and the advertising agency OMD.

Announcing the appointments, Cecilia Persson, Managing Director, BBC Studios Kids & Family, says, “I am delighted that Katharina and Kelly are bringing their considerable experience and insight to help us deliver our ambition to create high-quality content and build globally appealing brands that leave a lasting impression and have the power to make a difference to the lives of kids and their families everywhere.”

Katharina Pietzsch said, “I’m excited to join BBC Studios Kids & Family at a key period of growth for the business. I greatly admire the BBC’s globally-renowned, distinctive content and can’t wait to start supporting the division’s brands and helping them grow and develop internationally.”

Kelly Wood added, “I’m passionate about young audiences and developing new and innovative ways to reach them. I am so excited to be working with this incredibly creative team to help develop strategies that will create tomorrow’s ground-breaking, impactful, and cherished content.”