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Chantal Rickards OBE is a British television and film executive, a native of London and was the CEO of BAFTA Los Angeles from 2015 to 2019. She has recently joined the Advisory Board of the National Youth Theatre and is passionate about helping young people find their place in the world of film and TV.

In 2015 Chantal was appointed the first Chief Executive Officer of BAFTA Los Angeles. Chantal ran a small team who collectively looked after BAFTA members based in the US. BAFTA has members spanning the world of film, television and games and while in LA Chantal encouraged trade between the UK and US in these important creative sectors. Her work was recognized by Her Majesty the Queen in 2020 when she was awarded an OBE for her services to broadcasting and to charity.  Looking to BAFTA’s responsibility to young people, under her leadership, Chantal took the BAFTA LA California Student Film Awards and turned them into the global BAFTA Student Awards which now attract entries from over 350 film schools across the world. Her last job in the role was to executive produce her fifth BAFTA Britannia Awards in Hollywood in October 2019 featuring Jane Fonda, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Steve Coogan, Steve McQueen and Jackie Chan.

Chantal has produced and directed over a thousand television programmes for the BBC, ITV, Channel Four, Sky and Channel Five since leaving University College, London where she read French. She trained at ITV, rising from a low-level television researcher to a Producer, Director and Executive Producer of Factual Entertainment programmes including Masterchef, Through the Keyhole, Countdown, City Hospital, Parkinson and This Morning. She oversaw most of Through the Keyhole’s thirty-two year run on British television, hosted by Sir David Frost and Loyd Grossman CBE.

In 1999 she became the Channel Director of the Food Network and later joined the BBC where she commissioned and executive produced sixteen series annually for their lifestyle output on UKTV. Following a number of years at WPP Chantal headed to Hollywood from which she returned just before lockdown. She is happily now re-established in West London.

Chantal is a voting member of BAFTA,  an Honorary Fellow of University College, London and was Chairman of the first Hurlingham Club Arts Festival in 2021. She is a non-executive director  of The Dot Group, which is the leading global student housing company and she broadcasts each week for Men’s Radio Station doing film and TV reviews.