Biographies
RUTH KENLEY LETTS
CHIEF EXECUTIVE
Ruth trained and worked as an actress before moving across into production.
She produced several television dramas for BBC Wales before winning an Academy Award and a BAFTA for the short film Franz Kafka's A Wonderful Life alongside writer/director Peter Capaldi. She went on to produce his first feature, Strictly Sinatra for which she was nominated for a Carl Foreman BAFTA for Most Promising Newcomer in Feature Films. Another BAFTA nomination followed for The Tale of the Rat that Wrote, written and directed by Billy O'Brien, with whom she then worked on his first feature, horror film Isolation, produced alongside Bertrand Faivre of The Bureau.
Ruth then moved back into TV where she produced Exodus (C4 Silent Witness (BBC),), The Nativity (BBC), The Hour Series 1 & 2 (multi-award winner for BBC), The Tunnel Series 1 (multi-award winner for Sky) and The Casual Vacancy (BBC).
In 2015 she became Head of TV for Bronte Film and TV, and established Snowed-In Productions. She has Executive Produced Strike: The Cuckoo’s Calling, The Silkworm, Career of Evil and Lethal White (for BBC One and CineMax), Mrs Wilson (BAFTA nominated, BBC One and PBS Masterpiece), Too Close (ITV) and You Don’t Know Me (BBC).
NEIL BLAIR
CHAIRMAN
Neil Blair is the Chairman of the Board and a Director of Pottermore as well as the Founding Partner of The Blair Partnership, a London-based literary agency and business management company that represents several leading authors including J.K. Rowling.
Until 2011, he worked as a partner at the Christopher Little Literary Agency, which he joined in 2001. Before his career in the literary world, Blair was Warner Bros.’ European Head of Business Affairs, Europe, working in the film and TV arena on productions like Band of Brothers and Eyes Wide Shut.
He also helped to acquire the film rights for J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. Prior to his career in the entertainment business, Blair trained and qualified into the litigation team at the global law firm Linklaters & Paines (now rebranded as Linklaters) after graduating in law from Exeter College, Oxford University. Blair is active in a number of charities including Lumos, J.K. Rowling's charity, which works towards the deinstitutionalisation of children in East Europe.
JENNY VAN DER LANDE
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
In 2015 Jenny joined Ruth Kenley-Letts to lead the editorial side of Bronte and Snowed-In. Jenny Story Produced Strike: The Cuckoo’s Calling, The Silkworm, Career of Evil, and Lethal White, and set up the Snowed-In slate. She developed and Story Produced Mrs Wilson(BAFTA nominated), Too Close and You Don’t Know Me, sourcing the latter two at manuscript stage. She is particularly proud of helping two brilliant female writers secure their first greenlight.
Before that, she spent three years as a Development Executive at Working Title TV where she developed London Spy (BBC Two, BAFTA nominated) and You, Me and the Apocalypse (Sky One). Again, it was particularly exciting to support a writer to their first greenlight and great to work with other formidably talented writers such as Emma Frost, Shawn Slovo, Steve Lightfoot, Sarah Dollard, Cat Jones, Pete McTighe and Mickey Down.
From 2000-2011, Jenny worked at the BBC. She started in Development in BBC Drama Series and BBC Wales and then moved on to Casualty where she worked on hundreds of hours of TV and was Series Editor on a BAFTA winning run.
She has also worked as a freelance script consultant/script doctor.
JONATHAN BLAIR
HEAD OF LEGAL AND BUSINESS AFFAIRS
Jonathan is also partner at the media law firm Michael Simkins LLP.
He has longstanding experience in the film and TV sector and has advised on a number of high profile television and film projects for some of the UK leading producers as well as US studios.
JIM GILMARTIN
HEAD OF FINANCE
Jim has a wealth of experience in production finance with a background as a Director at Grant Thornton and as Finance Director to a number of television production companies in his native Dublin.
More recently Jim oversaw the finances of a live action events business through the origination and touring phases of the show. He oversees the day-to-day financial running of Snowed-In.
JESS CAMERON-LEWIS
HEAD OF PRODUCTION (CURRENTLY ON MATERNITY LEAVE)
Jess first worked with Ruth as assistant co-ordinator on series 1 & 2 of The Hour.
After working on several other dramas including Call The Midwife, and Death In Paradise, Jess went on to co-ordinate The Tunnel and was then given the opportunity to work with Ruth once more as supervising co-ordinator on The Casual Vacancy, before joining Brontë & Snowed-In full time.
LIZ WALKER
ACTING HEAD OF PRODUCTION
Liz joined Snowed-In in December 2019 and will be acting Head of Production whilst Jess is on maternity leave.
KATIE NEAL
IN HOUSE PRODUCTION MANAGER
Katie has worked as a freelancer in TV and Film since 2004, starting off as a PTA in the BBC Birmingham Factual department before moving to BBC Drama as a Floor Runner in 2005. After working as a Floor Runner for 2 years, Katie decided to move into Production and has made her way up, working on a variety of TV dramas and films, including ‘Holby City’ (BBC), ‘Endeavour’ (ITV) and ‘Close’ (Netflix) most recently working as a Production Manager on the ITV series ‘Doc Martin’ and ‘Manhunt’.
Katie joined the Bronté and Snowed-In team in September 2019 as their In-House Production Manager.
ROXANNE HARVEY
STORY PRODUCER
Roxanne joined the team in 2018, primarily to work within Bronte (our sister company) on the adaptation of the next Strike novel. She also assists Jenny in developing new TV projects for Snowed-In.
Most recently she worked for the BBC as Story Producer on Casualty, creating over 40 hours of TV drama a year. Prior to that she script edited prime time ITV dramas: The Bill, Footballers’ Wives and Bad Girls, also writing several episodes of the latter two series.
AMY GUYLER
DRAMA COORDINATOR
Amy joined the team in February 2017 and works across all Brontë and Snowed-In projects from development, right through into production, post-production and beyond. She also looks after the day-to-day running of the office and the team diary.
Before joining the team, Amy worked as a script and book reader for several production companies, and came up through the script team of ‘Holby City’. She is also a writer herself, most recently writing plays for the Vault Festival 2019/20, with an original series in development and five episodes for ‘Doctors’ on BBC1.
ALI PATON
EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT TO RUTH KENLEY-LETTS
Ali joined the team in September 2019 as Executive Assistant to Ruth Kenley-Letts.
She has worked at many companies including Warner Bros, Sky, CNN, Universal Pictures and Decca Records. Prior to her working life she trained as a professional actress and even did a stint on the London comedy circuit doing stand up!