Nicola Shindler
Executive Producer | Chief Executive of Quay Street Productions
Nicola Shindler OBE is a prolific, multi award-winning British television producer, who has worked with some of the most lauded names in television and created some of its most memorable series.
With over 25 years’ experience in television, Nicola has produced some of the UK’s most successful and award-winning dramas, including Years and Years, Happy Valley, Queer As Folk, Traces, Last Tango in Halifax, Butterfly and most recently Harlan Coben’s The Stranger. Forthcoming series include Finding Alice and No Return for ITV, Ridley Road for BBC, Traces series 2 for UKTV, Stay Close for Netflix and It’s A Sin for Channel 4/ HBO Max.
Renowned for her relationships with writers, Nicola has worked with an array of the UK’s most prolific and exciting writing talent including Russell T Davies, Sally Wainwright, Lenny Henry, Paul Abbott, Dan Sefton, Tony Marchant, Amelia Bullmore, Danny Brocklehurst, Matt Greenhalgh and Sarah Solemani, on series starring some of the world’s leading on-screen names.
In 2019, Nicola was awarded an OBE and took home one of BAFTA’s highest honours, the Special Award, for her services to British Broadcasting.
Prior to launching Quay Street Productions (part of ITV Studios) in 2021, Nicola founded RED Production Company in 1998, where she was Chief Executive for 22 years, and she also previously served as chief executive and chief creative officer at StudioCanal UK.
Karis Winstanley
Executive Assistant to Nicola Shindler / Operations and Communications Manager
Karis is Nicola’s executive assistant joining the team fresh from production running across HETV dramas Ridley Road, It’s A Sin, and The Stranger which Shindler exec produced on.
Samantha McMillon
Chief Operating Officer
Samantha McMillon is a seasoned television executive with over two decades of expertise in international distribution, spanning sales and acquisitions, in the global TV and Media market. McMillon joined Quay Street Productions as the Chief Operating Officer at the start of 2023, where she oversees the company’s commercial operations, working alongside Quay Street CEO Nicola Shindler to support the future growth of the production company.
With a passion for facilitating storytelling on a local and global level, McMillon has vast experience working with production companies, producers and distributors gained through senior leadership roles at in content distribution, commercial and production at ITV Studios and Mammoth Screen.
During her near 20-year tenure at ITV Studios, McMillon led on bringing scripted content to the market from UK, European and Australian producers, and through her role as the Commercial Director, she worked across the slates of multiple ITV Studio’s labels and producers.
Richard Fee
Executive Producer
Richard has been a close collaborator with bestselling US novelist, Harlan Coben, working as an executive producer on Stay Close, The Stranger and Safe for Netflix and the story producer of The Five.
He has worked closely with Danny Brocklehurst on these series and also, most recently, as an executive producer on the ITV mini-series No Return, starring Sheridan Smith.
Richard is currently producing an adaptation of Neil Gaiman's epic fantasy novel, Anansi Boys for Amazon, starring Malachi Kirby and Delroy Lindo.
Richard was the script executive on BAFTA-nominated mini-series, Prey, starring John Simm, and has script edited series written by Mick Ford, Bill Gallagher, Sue Perkins and Tony Marchant. He has worked with Nicola Shindler since 2010, making drama for the BBC, ITV, Netflix, Amazon and Sky.
Chris Leach
Head of Production
Chris is well known in the drama production community having worked on projects as diverse as Coronation Street, The Bay and most recently on A Spy Among Friends for Britbox/Charter. Prior to joining Quay Street Productions, he was an experienced Production Executive at ITV Studios.
Having started his career at Granada Television 24 years ago, he's remained based in the North West and is a passionate supporter of production in the North with a keen interest in technology and innovative production techniques.
Rachel Jones
Production Executive
Rachel started her career in 2002, working in post-production across both factual and entertainment as well as drama programming. In 2010 she moved over to drama production to join Sky's returning series Mount Pleasant. She continued her career working as a freelancer on many HETV Drama drama and film productions across the Northwest and the North of England including Nolly, Peaky Blinders, Ghost Stories, Everything I Know About Love, Traces, Scott and Bailey, The Syndicate and In The Flesh to name a few.
Emily Brauders
Post Production Executive
Emily is an experienced Post Production Executive working in high-end TV drama, having started her career in 2006 as an Assistant Director and Production Coordinator. Her early credits include the Red Riding Trilogy, The Queen and Casualty. After eventually forging a career in Post-Production, Emily worked for Red Production Company for over ten years, where her credits included award-winning shows such as Stay Close (Netflix), Years and Years (BBC) and Last Tango in Halifax (BBC).
Since joining Quay Street in 2022, Emily has been leading our Post-Production team across all of our commissioned projects, including Nolly (ITVX), Men Up (BBC), Fool Me Once (Netflix), After The Flood (ITV) and Dead Hot (Amazon Prime), and Lazarus (Amazon). She continues to lead the team on a range of exciting projects still yet to be announced.
Laura Hacking-Vile
Post Production coordinator
Laura joined QSP after working at RED and ITV for over ten years in a variety of roles. She initially started working at ITV Anglia in factual storytelling after doing an MA in Wildlife Documentary Production. This led to an opportunity in Post Production and a transfer to Granada in Manchester. Here, she learnt about different technologies and workflows for a variety of genres, including drama where she did a dedicated stint on Coronation Street.
Kate Boyle
Head of Business Affairs
Kate started her career working in IT law then human rights in Australia, before moving to the UK and starting work at the BBC where she worked in various roles including as an advisor to the BBC Trust (the then governing body of the BBC). She then started her business affairs career advising on factual, news and current affairs programming. She moved from there to scripted where she worked on both the commissioning and production side of the business at the BBC/BBC Studios. Most recently she was at indie producer FilmWave before joining ITV Studios and now Quay Street Productions. She has most previously advised on a range of scripted programmes including A Spy Among Friends (Sony), Good Omens (Amazon), The Letter for the King (Netflix) and EastEnders (BBC).
Emma Murie
Senior Business Affairs Manager
Emma began her television production career at Lion Television and Hat Trick Productions, with an initial focus on factual programming, including both documentaries and factual entertainment. However, her love of scripted television as a viewer soon led her to Kudos Film & Television, where she advised on a wide range of scripted series including "Tin Star 3" and "Then You Run" for Sky, "Grantchester 6" for ITV and "The Rig" for Amazon, and numerous other developments and national/international productions for the Apple, BBC, Channel 4 and others. Emma then undertook a stint in kids' programming at Zodiak Kids, where she most notably advised on "Silverpoint 2" for the BBC and a number of children's book IP acquisitions before returning to scripted drama development and production here at Quay Street Productions.
Sue Keatley
Business Affairs Executive + Awards Manager
Sue has worked in television for many years, she was lucky to have started her early career at the BBC, moving to Granada London and then working freelance as a production co-ordinator on non and scripted shows. Later she joined the Business Affairs department assisting on writers development deals and being a contact for busy production teams.
Sue joined Quay Street Productions in 2023 as BA Executive where she has implemented several systems to help processes run smoothly, she is also the Awards Manager, managing Quay Street’s award schedules and entries, which are very busy and proving to be quite successful for the company.
She loves reading, going for walks and watching the latest shows with her family. Sue is Manchester based and loves the excitement and fun of a busy production company.
Maryam Fahim
Business Affairs Manager
Maryam is an avid reader and passionate about scripted production and all things related to media. Prior to joining Quay Street, Maryam started her TV career in broadcasting at AMC Networks in the UK where her role involved content and rights acquisition as well as distribution of all linear, non-linear channels and platforms owned and operated by various companies in the AMC group. Her experience spans across unscripted having worked on productions for CBS Reality.
She's also had the opportunity to get involved in negotiating agreements for exciting industry related events, such as the Sundance Film Festival and FrightFest, and has worked on related matters such as talent agreements for festival appearance, competitions and licensing of shorts and other content shown at festivals.
Davina Earl
Head of Development & Executive Producer
Most recently she headed development for Red Production Company and prior to this was a script executive working across series such as Safe (Netflix) and Come Home (BBC One).
Davina was assistant producer on Danny Brocklehurst's In the Dark for BBC One and also worked as a script editor for BBC inhouse drama on shows such as the BAFTA winning In the Flesh.
She has worked as a script editor on Hollyoaks and a development producer for Lime Pictures.
Davina has also worked in BBC Comedy Commissioning and for BBC writersroom, where she found a love of nurturing newer writers. She started her career at the BBC as a script editor for Comedy production.
Fiona McAllister
Script Executive
Fiona is a seasoned script editor, working on some of the UKs best loved shows. Having worked her way up from Script Assistant to Series Script Editor at Emmerdale, she crossed the Pennines for a stint as Series Script Editor at Coronation Street before script editing two series of Doctor Who. Prior to joining Quay Street as Script Executive, Fiona was Development Executive for Kudos North.
Since joining Quay Street, Fiona has been delighted to Script Exec Significant Other, After The Flood and The Perfect Mother, as well as being across a broad slate of original, exciting new developments. She counts herself very lucky to work with such a brilliant team and feels weird writing about herself in the third person.
Will McDonagh
Script Executive
Will started his television career in the AD department, before transitioning to script editing at Emmerdale. He eventually worked his way up to Senior Script Editor there before leaving to script edit the last series of Cold Feet with Big Talk North. Before joining Quay Street he was part of the BBC Children's Drama Commissioning team, working on a range of projects across both production and development.
Whilst at QSP, Will has script edited both Significant Other (ITVX) and After The Flood (ITV), and has since been promoted to Script Executive. He is currently working on a new high-end thriller in production for Amazon Prime, as well as various projects across our development slate.
Athena Stavrakis
Script Executive
Athena joined Quay Street in 2022 and oversees the team's book-to-screen and podcast development. She also collaborates with a wide array of new and established screenwriters, developing their original ideas for television drama.
Prior to joining the team, Athena worked as an Assistant Producer on the award-winning BBC One drama, Sherwood. She was previously a script editor at Red Production Company, where her credits included The Stranger (Netflix), Trust Me (BBC) and Safe (Netflix). Athena started her TV career in the AD and production departments, working on dramas such as Black Mirror, Downton Abbey and Humans.
Athena is passionate about improving inclusion and diversity within the screen sector and has supported emerging talent through the Creative Access and ScreenSkills Mentoring programmes.
Charlie Quinn
Script Executive
Charlie has worked with some of the UK's most celebrated screenwriting talent. He was Script Editor on Quay Street's award-winning debut drama Nolly by Russell T. Davies, before being promoted to Script Executive on Toby Whithouse's folk-horror inflected thriller The Red King for UKTV, and Charlotte Coben's upcoming comedy-thriller Dead Hot for Amazon Prime.
Having begun his television career at Channel 4's continuing drama Hollyoaks, Charlie joined Lime Pictures' Scripted Drama development team in 2018. He later moved to BBC Writersroom as a Script Editor, before joining the team at Quay Street in 2021.
Charlie was profiled in Broadcast magazine as one of their 'Hotshots' of 2023, in recognition of his skills and dedication to developing and creating outstanding television. As well as working with established writers, Charlie is committed to identifying new and enticing writing talent, working on a number of projects across Quay Street's varied development slate.
Alice Grant
Script Executive
Before joining Quay Street Productions, Alice worked with Nicola Shindler as a freelance Script Executive on Harlan Coben’s Fool Me Once, Stay Close, and Ridley Road written by Sarah Solemani, starring Rory Kinnear and Eddie Marsen.
Prior to this Alice worked in development for companies including Warp and Urban Myth Films. Here she worked with writer Howard Overman on shows including Crazyhead, Atlantis, War of the Worlds, and The One and in development on The Lazarus Project.
Alice started her career working across different genres in film, tv and theatre, before moving into tv drama to work on BAFTA award winning single drama Complicit written by Guy Hibbert.
Caitlin Crawford
Script Editor
Caitlin started her career at Radio 4 before discovering her passion for scripts in the Radio Drama department. She script edited numerous radio dramas including series 7 of the landmark detective series STONE before making the leap to television and working in development in Kudos' newly established sister company, Kudos North. She returned to the BBC to develop and script edit an adaptation of a much loved Julia Donaldson book whilst also mentoring new writers on BBC Writersroom's Northern & Cornish voices schemes.
Since joining the Quay Street team Caitlin has focused on development with a particular emphasis on book-to screen adaptation, supporting new voices and championing brilliant ideas. She has also been actively pursuing new opportunities to bridge the gap between podcasts & audio narrative and tv drama.
Denzel Adebayo
Script Editor
Denzel is a television Script Editor at Quay Street Productions. Originally from London, he attended the Northern Film School in Leeds. Since 2014, he has worked across documentary, commercials and HETV; working on shows such as Peaky Blinders, Ackley Bridge, Intergalactic and Cobra.
Charlie Niel
Script Editor
Before joining Quay Street, Charlie worked as a Development Executive at Hilary Bevan Jones’ Endor Productions where he worked with a range of newer and more established writers across the company’s busy development slate. Prior to Endor, he worked in the TFTV department at Curtis Brown and as an Agent Trainee at UTA. He graduated with a BA in Film Studies from Falmouth University in 2015.
Amy Arnold
Script Editor
Since joining Quay Street, Amy has worked across multiple productions. These Include The Red King for UKTV and Lazarus for Amazon Prime as Script Editor - as well as Fool Me Once as Assistant Script Editor.
Alongside this, Amy is part of the BBC Writers Drama Room cohort for 2023. Here, she gained her first writing credit, a drama for The Verb, a Radio 3 programme which celebrates language.
Before this, Amy worked as an Assistant Script Editor on Coronation Street and was part of the BBC Northern Voices programme.
Hannah Collins
Script Editor
Hannah has just graduated from university where she studied English. Whilst there, Hannah directed and produced multiple plays and short films, as well as founding Cambridge Creatives, a student society that ran Q&As with professionals in film, TV and theatre. Hannah loved her work experience at Quay Street Productions in 2021 and is really looking forward to working in development.
Freya Boroda
Development Editor
Freya has worked in TV script development for almost 20 years. She enjoys supporting established and new writers as they develop their projects.