Faith Penhale

 became an executive producer of Doctor Who on 13 March 2013, following the resignation of Caroline Skinner. Like Julie Gardner and Piers Wenger before her, she became an executive producer by virtue of being Head of Drama of BBC Wales. At the time of her accession to the position, she was only confirmed as the executive producer of what the British Broadcasting Corporation vaguely referred to as "the 50th Anniversary". In the same press announcement, the BBC indicated they were looking for a new executive producer for series 8. It was unclear at that time whether Penhale would join another incoming executive producer, or whether she was only going to hold the title on an interim basis in 2013.

Before Doctor Who
Like the majority of Steven Moffat's fellow executive producers, she had worked for the prior to her involvement with Doctor Who. She had, for instance, worked on, production designed by Ed Thomas; and , with Tamzin Outhwaite and Liz White. She therefore shares with Matt Smith a professional connection to, who not only created these two shows, but also Smith's early television gig,.

Penhale first worked with dozens of Doctor Who crew members when she executive produced the second series of Jean Marsh's BBC Wales revival of, featuring Alex Kingston.

Penhale's career earlier in the 2000s had largely been that of a script editor, in which capacity she worked on and EastEnders. Her script-editing on the, with Sarah Parish,  may have been seen by more Americans, since BBC America ran it in 2004.