The Team
Academy Award and BAFTA winning producer Ruth Kenley-Letts is CEO of Snowed-In Productions. She has been nominated for several awards including the prestigious Carl Foreman most promising newcomer before she began working consistently in TV. Her many credits include Silent Witness (BBC), The Nativity (BBC), The Hour Series 1 & 2 (multi-award winner, BBC), The Tunnel Series 1 (multi-award winner, Sky/Canal Plus) and The Casual Vacancy (BBC/HBO).
In 2015 she established Snowed-In Productions. As CEO of both Brontë and Snowed-In she has executive produced all of the Robert Galbraith’s Strike series: The Cuckoo’s Calling, The Silkworm, Career of Evil, Lethal White and Troubled Blood (for BBC One/ HBO Max), Mrs Wilson (BAFTA nominated, BBC / PBS Masterpiece), Too Close (Bafta nominated, ITV /AMC), You Don’t Know Me (Bafta nominated, BBC/ Netflix), The Midwich Cuckoos (Sky) Stonehouse (ITV/ Britbox) and is currently filming Joan for ITV / CW.
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 has led the editorial side of Snowed-In since its inception. She set up the slate, which she continues to oversee. She developed Mrs Wilson, Too Close, You Don’t Know Me and Joan, sourcing the latter three at manuscript stage; provides editorial support on co-productions such as The Midwich Cuckoos, and runs Bronte’s editorial which currently encompasses the Strike series (The Cuckoo’s Calling, The Silkworm, Career of Evil, Lethal White, Troubled Blood).
Before that, she spent three years as a Development Executive at Working Title TV where she developed London Spy and You, Me and the Apocalypse.
From 2000-2011, Jenny worked at the BBC. She started in Development in BBC Drama Series, then moved to BBC Wales, and then onto Casualty where she worked on hundreds of hours of drama and was Series Editor on a BAFTA winning run.
She has also worked as a freelance script consultant/script doctor and lives in Bristol.
Jess Cameron-Lewis has managed the Production side of Snowed-In since its inception. She joined Brontë in 2015 as a Production Manager and set to work developing the company policies, systems and processes required to get Productions over the line. Jess has grown an internal production team and is also the key point of contact for all HR related matters on our Productions.
Jess first worked with Ruth as an assistant co-ordinator on series 1 & 2 of The Hour and worked with Ruth again as the Production Co-ordinator on series 1 of The Tunnel, before she was asked to oversee Brontë’s first show, The Casual Vacancy in 2014.
Jess started out as a runner and floor runner in television in 2009 and has worked in many different roles across Production and Post-Production.
Jess works from the London office and lives in Woking.
Simon Gerra joined the Snowed-In team in June 2021 and leads the finance team, overseeing the day-to-day financial running of Bronte and Snowed-In and providing strategic direction for the companies.
Simon has spent more than 20 years in the television industry, most recently he was Financial Controller at Studio Lambert (part of the All3Media group) where he managed the finances and production margins across several BAFTA winning factual entertainment formats and scripted shows, including Goggle-Box for C4, The Circle for Netflix and The Nest for the BBC. Prior to this Simon was Group Financial Controller at Zinc Media Group plc where he was involved in the acquisition of Reef Television and Tern TV into the group.
Simon began his career at the BBC where he spent 10 years working across multiple departments and programme genres including Scripted Drama and Comedy, Docs, Specialist Factual and Children’s Television. Simon trained at the BBC inhouse and gained the ACCA qualification.
Katie Neal joined the team in September 2019 and has since worked on Too Close, You Don’t Know Me, The Midwich Cuckoos and Stonehouse. Katie is at present working on Snowed-In’s latest commission Joan which is currently shooting in the West Midlands.
Before that Katie worked as a freelancer for 14 years, making her way up to Production Manager working on a variety of TV dramas and films, including Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix (WB) Holby City (BBC), Endeavour (ITV) Close (Netflix), Doc Martin (ITV) and Manhunt (ITV).
Katie graduated from the University of Lincoln in 2004 and started her career in the BBC Birmingham factual department before getting her first role at BBC Birmingham Drama in 2005.
Benjamin Schaan joined the Snowed-In team in April 2021. Since then, he has been heavily involved across the entire Snowed-In slate. Before this he worked as a freelancer in the film and TV industry since 2014. Benjamin works closely with Series Producers in the pre-production stage of Snowed-In’s projects to ensure they are best setup for filming. He then continues to collaborate with the production teams during filming and post-production to provide support and guidance where needed.
Benjamin has held many positions across the industry, ranging from In-House Business Affairs Associate to Producer’s Assistant for a number of well-known executives and creatives in Canada, The UK and Israel. In the last few years Benjamin has worked as a Production Manager and Coordinator on many high-profile projects including Black Narcissus (FX), The Batman (WB) and Altered Carbon (Netflix). Most recently Benjamin worked as the Production Coordinator on the hit Netflix series Top Boy.
Roxanne Harvey has Story Produced on Joan, Too Close and Lethal White for Snowed In and Bronte. Before that, she worked for the BBC running the storylining team on Casualty across a NTA and BAFTA winning series.
She is now building her own slate of projects alongside Creative Director Jenny van der Lande. She lives in Cardiff.
Yamila Baqouah Karraz joined the Snowed-In team in March 2021 and works alongside Simon as part of the finance team.
She began her professional career after finishing her degree in hospitality and hotel business in Malaga when she moved to Paris to work as a night auditor. She then worked several years in London at the ACCOR hotel chain and eventually became their Group Accounts Manager in Madrid.
Yamila’s return to London offered up new opportunities and she began working in various finance roles within the music industry. She worked for many years at Rocket Music, where she simultaneously completed her Management Accountancy qualifications with CIMA while working as the Tour Financial Controller for Elton John.
Adam Narat joined the team in October 2019 after predominantly working in theatre; starting out as the Almeida Theatre’s Outreach Coordinator, he later moved into script development, joining the Royal Court Theatre’s Literary Department before becoming Literary Associate at Out of Joint Theatre Company. He then transitioned into television development, working with the Channel 4 commissioning team before joining Brontë/Snowed-In.
Adam assists Jenny and Roxanne in creating new ideas for projects, as well as finessing working ones, and discovering new writers for the team to work with.
Cat Pope joined Snowed-In as Team Assistant in September 2021 and became Drama Coordinator in August 2022, supporting both the Production and Development departments in an administrative and creative capacity. As part of her role, Cat is Assistant Script Editor on Joan for ITVX.
Before Snowed-In, Cat was a Producer’s Assistant at Complete Fiction Pictures, working on projects including Lockwood & Co for Netflix and Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho. She has worked in a variety of other roles across film and television, beginning her career in distribution at Universal Pictures.
Jonathan is a partner at the media law firm 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.