Bunim/Murray Productions and 51 Minds Entertainment have promoted both Margaret Morales and Mike Vanderlinde to Vice President of Production at the Banijay Americas labels. Their promotions were announced Wednesday by Bunim/Murray and 51 Minds Chief Operating Officer Zachary Klein.
In their new roles, the pair will oversee the physical production processes for projects in development at both Bunim/Murray and 51 Minds, including docuseries, global competition shows and other forms of branded content. Prior to their joint promotion, Morales and Vanderlinde served as the Executives in Charge of Production for the two Los Angeles-based Banijay labels.
“Margaret and Mike are exceptional production leaders,” Klein said in a statement. “Their combination of operational expertise, creative partnership and global production experience has been instrumental to some of our most complex and high-profile series, and we look forward to their continued leadership across our slate in their new roles.”
Morales has been a part of Bunim/Murray for 17 years, having worked on shows like “The Challenge,” “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” and “Born This Way.” Vanderlinde has managed productions at Bunim/Murray since 2009 as well, and has worked on unscripted titles like “Vanderpump Villa,” “The Family Stallone” and “The Never Ever Mets.”
Morales is overseeing a number of new Bunim/Murray and 51 Minds series that are set to be announced later this year. Since joining the company as an intern in 2009, she has taken on multiple different production roles and notably helped oversee logistics for the “Challenge” franchise’s global expansion into producing local iterations in Argentina, the U.K. and Australia.
A television industry veteran whose career began in 2004, Vanderlinde has worked on a number of other major unscripted TV franchises outside of Banijay, including “The Real World,” “Project Runway” and “The Amazing Race.”
