Who We Are

Chief Executive Officer

Elizabeth Kilgarriff is an award nominated producer and former Senior Commissioning Editor for BBC Drama. With over 20 years experience in the industry, her multi award-winning portfolio of work includes Emmy and Golden Globe nominated Bodyguard, Bafta winning thrillers The Cry and The Victim, Emmy nominated Luther, International Emmy winning McMafia and the critically acclaimed Thirteen starring Jodie Comer.

Chief Operating Officer

Craig is a veteran of the BBC where he was the Head of Business for BBC Drama and BBC Films for many years responsible for all funding, finance, strategic and commercial operations across the genre. He has been involved in many programmes over the years but some of his highlights include Doctor Who, Peaky Blinders and His Dark Materials. He co-founded Firebird Pictures in 2019.

Executive Producer

Multi-BAFTA, RTS and Broadcast award-winning Executive Producer Aysha Rafaele is passionate about championing voices and perspectives that are under-represented in TV and is known for a raft of timely, powerful and agenda-setting films such as Life and Death in the Warehouse, The Left Behind, Killed By My Debt, Murdered For Being Different, Against The Law, Murdered By My Father and Don’t Take My Baby. Before focusing solely on drama, Aysha was Executive Producer on a range of high end factual programmes including some of Louis Theroux’s documentaries (Savile, Drinking to Oblivion, By Reason of Insanity, Transgender Kids), BBC Three’s smash hit The Call Centre and Life and Death Row: The Mass Execution.

Director of Production

Nikki has joined Firebird Pictures from BBC Studios where she was Director of Production for Continuing Drama and Birmingham Drama. Nikki has 26 years of experience in scripted productions working up from floor runner through a variety of roles in production and post production to line producer before joining the BBC as a production consultant and then moving to head of production and finally director of production.

Head of Development

Matthew joined Firebird Pictures on day one, building shows with some of the industry’s brightest new voices alongside established stars. Before this he worked in-house at the BBC as script editor and development executive; his credits include LUTHER, MOTHERFATHERSON, THIRTEEN and SILENT WITNESS.

Development Producer

Sarah joined Firebird Pictures from FilmNation TV UK where she was Head of Development for the new UK arm. Prior to this Sarah was a Development Executive at BBC Studios working across a broad slate of projects. Her experience as a Script Editor includes The Man in the High Castle (Amazon), Indian Detective (Netflix) and Harlots (Hulu). Sarah started her career as an actress working across theatre, film, TV and radio before moving into script development, starting at Sprout Pictures then moving onto Big Light Productions.

Development Executive

Andin joined Firebird after script editing ITV’s RICHES and Amazon’s THE RIG. Prior to this she worked in development at Hillbilly Films and was junior researcher at Daybreak Pictures, after spending some time in factual TV. Andin is passionate about bringing new, fresh, bold perspectives to the screen.

Development Editor

Katie is passionate about contemporary storytelling, and particularly loves fostering new Irish perspectives for screen. After completing her MA in Producing for Film and Television, Katie worked as a runner as well as producing a couple of short films. She then joined the Firebird team as their Development Assistant and has been building her editorial experience, now script editing her first production, and continuing within the team as Development Editor.

Development Assistant

Michelle joined Firebird after building her drama and comedy experience Running for Shiny Button, VAL and Hat Trick. Now, she’s excited to develop her editorial judgement under industry greats who (like herself) are focused on unique stories told by diverse writers. Particularly, she’s thrilled to work in a writer-led space that affords black talent the freedom to imagine boundlessly for large mainstream platforms.