Create and fund our own 4-part documentary TV series for one of the world’s most respected broadcasters, unearthing and delivering inspirational stories of women’s achievements from all corners of the globe – from grass roots activists to Presidents. The documentary would deliver positive role models for women around the world and ensure that their achievements weren’t airbrushed from history.

It would also make women the active subject, not just the passive object and dramatise the fact that they are changing the world. And by telling the stories of these inspirational women, we could then help more women embrace their own worth as women and change the world themselves.

We brought in our co-production company to work with us and set about funding and creating four 60 minute documentaries for BBC World News, each featuring globally relevant stories of inspirational women.

These included Dalia Grybauskaite, President of Lithuania; Michelle Bachelet, President of Chile; Geena Davis and Balkissa Chaibou, a 19-year old fighting child marriage in Niger.

These women shared their incredible stories and experiences, often while conducting their day-to-day lives giving extraordinary insight and a previously unseen personal intimacy.

The research itself took place over a year, and filming took another, often taking place in some of the world’s most dangerous territories. With more than a week’s worth of footage (170 hours) to assemble into a coherent and cogent narrative, editing then took a further 25 weeks (1960 hours).

On air from mid-February to mid-March 2016, Her Story reached 433 million homes across 200 countries. We are now in advanced talks with more than 20 global distributors to syndicate the content.

Already it is having an impact on people’s lives. One of the stars, Chhavi Rajawat, a female Mayor in India, received help from a group of Java developers who offered their services for free to help get her village online.

Crucially, we are also showing Her Story in schools, screening it for 13 to 18-year-olds in order to inspire students with these stories of female achievement. We are even in talks to convert this into educational material for the curriculum.