Arsalan Akhavan most recently worked for two years as the Director of Scripted TV Development for Lesli Linka Glatter's production company Backyard Pictures with Universal Television. Prior to that, he spent four years at Creative Artists Agency working under Ann Blanchard across all facets of TV Packaging. Arsalan earned his Bachelor's in Fine Arts in Theatre Acting from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, and spent his first year out of college directing and producing Theatre in New York City, before transitioning into Television in Los Angeles in 2016. Arsalan has now started his own production company, Rug Entertainment, to follow in his grandfather Mostafa Akhavan's legacy of empowering emerging and established Iranian artists by producing and developing Iranian-centred stories through a cross-cultural lens for the global marketplace.

Sepy Baghaei is an Iranian-Australian theatre director based in London. She originally trained as an actor at the Australian Academy of Dramatic Art, before moving to London to undertake an MA in Advanced Theatre Practice at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.

Sepy is primarily drawn to new writing, and has workshopped new plays with the National Theatre Studio and the Royal Shakespeare Company. Recent credits include: The Boy With Two Hearts (National Theatre/Wales Millennium Centre); Sokhan Begoo (Royal Court); Habibti Driver (Octagon); Manor (National Theatre); Once Upon A Time In Nazi Occupied Tunisia (Almeida); Reasons To Stay Alive (Sheffield Theatres/English Touring Theatre); Othello (English Touring Theatre); and As You Like It (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre).

Sepy is a recipient of the Ian Potter Cultural Trust Award and the Guildford Academic Associates Scholarship.