Jez Frankel is the founder and CEO of Quite Frankly, an independent production company creating films and content for global brands. Its clients have included Diageo, Unilever and Mishcon de Reya. Under his leadership, the business has expanded internationally, opening offices in Bangalore in 2015 and New York in 2018.
Jez began his career as a graduate trainee at advertising agency Bates Dorland before moving into broadcast journalism, working as a business journalist and producer for organisations including the BBC and CNBC. He launched Quite Frankly Productions in 2003, initially making studio programmes for BBC News, before relaunching the business in 2006 to focus on video production and storytelling for businesses and brands.
Alongside its commercial work, Quite Frankly runs a Foundation producing pro bono films for charities and causes close to the team. Celebrating 20 years since its relaunch in 2026, the company remains fiercely independent. Jez is passionate about the agility of small businesses and the freedom of building and running a company together with his team.
Highlights
I think that's the bit that I've always loved about it is being able to see behind the scenes of how things really work.
We've got lots of young people for whom it's still their sort of first job in the media and you know, they're trained camera operators, they're trained visual effects artists, they're trained editors now and that is deeply, deeply satisfying to me.
At the beginning you're just frantically paddling just to do the work.
I know it sounds obvious but fundamentally you've got to kind of go to people with solutions for what they have.
We're a small boat on sort of fairly treacherous, choppy water sometimes but it's our boat and we're sailing it and that's what's so lovely about being independent.