Shubbak Team
Alia Alzougbi
Artistic Director & CEO
Alia is a cultural strategist, artist and facilitator working at the intersection of art and social and environmental justice. Her practice uses the arts to interrogate the fundamental causes of inequality and explore alternative modes of understanding the world and being in it. She has worked with national and international organisations, including the National Theatre and the British Council, to create critical encounters in education and the arts towards collective liberation. She has curated a range of interventions and creative disruptions, from local corner shops to world-renowned museums. Alia is a Chevening Scholar, a Clore Fellow and Associate, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and volunteers as a coach and mentor with those experiencing reduced access to opportunities in the cultural and creative industries. She is a recipient of the Writer's Guild Olwen Wymark Award for the encouragement of new writing in 2019 and was nominated for a BAFTA
Scotland in 2008.
Sukriti Sharma
General Manager & Participation Producer
Sukriti is a culture and community engagement professional with a deep love and curiosity for working with people from diverse backgrounds. She has previously worked on the Jaipur Literature Festival and Should Art, amongst other multi-art form programmes in India. She has mentored a cohort of young leaders from India and the UK on the Pravah International Citizen Service programme, and has also co-developed arts practice learning programmes for young artists - including the Mumbai edition of Writer’s Lab with Soho Theatre and G5A. Trained as a community music facilitator with Musicians Without Borders, her background is in creating safe and inclusive creative spaces for reflection, expression, and collaboration through community arts practice and youth engagement. Her academic inquiries rest across political science, cultural studies and music & development, and she holds an MA in Cultural Policy, Relations and Diplomacy from Goldsmiths, University of London.
Nick Anderson
Senior Producer
Nick is a London-based festival producer who has developed festivals and tours across the world. His particular interests sit within counter-cultural and mainstream crossovers, and how best to present exceptional artwork. He has worked across multiple art forms, and with a specific interest in electronic music and experimental sonic artists. When developing programmes and events, he is focused on presenting work with highest possible production and access levels. Recently he produced Nelly Ben Hayoun’s Tour de Moon, which was a huge scale touring festival across England, which focused on creating many hundreds of opportunities for young creatives. He’s very happy to have joined the Shubbak team, as he was an audience at the 2019 festival, and it was a cultural highlight of the year for him.
Shyam Nasira Persaud
Access & Inclusion Producer
Shyam is an artist-producer with backgrounds in biological science, psychotherapeutic methods and qualitative social science research (MSc with distinction; The University of Edinburgh). Through her practice, she explores human connection to self and others, framed by such lenses as capitalism, trauma and depth psychology. Projects include the refurbishment of a nursery with inmates in a Peruvian prison. Having started out in arts administration, she moved into NHS cancer research. During this time, she served as a committee member of Cancer Control in Low and Middle Income Countries, an annual conference at the Royal Society of Medicine, and trained as an English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) teacher. Alia has a disabling health condition and Shyam views their work together as a powerful site of integration for the various strands of her experience, as well as a unique relational space filled with learning, care and joy.
Dina Dakik
Communications Manager
Dina is a Marketing and Comms Manager with experience in Program Management, Experience Curation, Digital Marketing, Community Management and Social Impact Fundraising. She holds 9 years of experience at Google and YouTube in Ireland and London, where she ran inspirational and educational events at the YouTube Production Studios across London, Berlin, Paris and Dubai such as the YouTube Festival and diversity programs for Women and Black content creators. Dina is deeply passionate about amplifying the Arabic culture and talent in the Western world, and was the lead of the Arabs Employee Resource Group at Google UK. She is a music and festival lover, a hang drum player and an activist.
Melanie Precious
Executive Director (interim)
Melanie is a cultural leader and innovator, joining the team at Shubbak directly from a five year tenure as CEO and Creative Director at Greenwich Dance. With a belief in the power of arts to strengthen communities and enrich lives, she has worked across multiple roles to support the embedding of culture within regeneration, placemaking, community development and health and wellbeing agendas. She specialises in entrepreneurial and creative thinking and brings experience of running a project funded arts organisation and small charity. Whilst at Greenwich Dance she transformed a building based organisation to become peripatetic, conceived of and delivered ArtsUnboxed (a platform designed to tour ideas rather than people) as well as co-curating and hosting 5 series of the podcast Talking Moves.
Her leadership was recognised by the dance sector in February 2024 with the awarding of the One Dance UK Dance Spotlight Award. She was nominated for a Women in Leadership Award by AWA (Advancing Women’s Aspirations with Dance) in 2021. During her tenure at Greenwich Dance the organisation was awarded the Best of Royal Greenwich Business: Tourism and Culture (2020) and the organisation was nominated for a Best of Royal Greenwich Business: Heath and Wellbeing (2022). In 2024 Greenwich Dance was nominated by One Dance UK in the Community Champion category.
Melanie is an alumni of Clore Pulse Leadership course as well as the National Arts Fundraising School and is thrilled to be joining the inspirational team at Shubbak.
Our wider team
Our festivals are supported by a team of volunteers, freelance producers and partner organisations.
Website by Bullet Creative.
Shubbak Trustees
Shadia El Dardiry
Chair
Shadia El Dardiry is an employment lawyer at Clyde and Co. She previously worked at a charity law firm, where she regularly advised charities and creative organisations. Shadia comes from a human rights background, and has worked on migration issues in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. She has engaged in EU- and national-level advocacy as well as capacity building of local organisations. Alongside this, she has had a longstanding interest in the relationship between art and politics in the SWANA region, with a particular focus on 20th and 21st century literature from the region, and in art as a form of expression for migrants and refugees. Shadia holds a Masters in Political Science and a BA (Hons) in Political Science and Economics from McGill University.
Fady Alrayyes
Fady Alrayyes is a Principal at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), an institution established to help member countries develop their economies. In his role he covers the Arab countries, manages technical cooperation projects, and conducts policy dialogue on local currency and capital markets development. Before joining EBRD, he worked as a research analyst for Thomas Murray, a London based consulting firm specialised in providing information and risk rating of capital market institutions, primarily covering the Middle East and Africa desk and working on product development. Fady holds a bachelor in economics from London School of Economics, and a Master’s degree in investment and finance from University of Exeter.
Lynn Gaspard
Lynn Gaspard is the Managing Director of Middle-East specialist press Saqi Books. A fiercely independent forum for writers and artists from around the world, Saqi has made its mark as a publisher unafraid of taking risks, championing works by minority writers from the Middle East and beyond. Gaspard is a member of English PEN’s Writers in Translation Committee and of the MFest Expert Advisory Group, and was previously on the Nour Festival of Arts Steering Committee. She is the editor of the satirical collection Don’t Panic, I’m Islamic.
Almir Koldzic
Almir is a Co-Founder and Co-Director of Counterpoints Arts - a leading national organisation in the field of arts, migration and social justice, supporting the arts by, about and with refugees and migrants. His experiences in this context include leading on developing strategy and identity for Refugee Week UK Festival; developing Platforma - arts and refugees national network; building meaningful and long term collaborations with leading inter/national arts, cultural and advocacy organisations; and producing a wide range of events and commissions relating to displacement.
Sumantro Ghose
Sumantro Ghose is an Arts Producer, Curator and Cultural Strategist with over 20 years’ experience in museums and exhibitions, festivals, audience development and cultural diplomacy. Most recently he has been Managing Director of the London Design Biennale, and was previously responsible for exhibitions and museum programmes at Dubai Culture and Arts Authority. Prior to joining Dubai Culture, Sumantro was Deputy Director, Cultural Diplomacy Programmes at Qatar Museums in Doha. In the UK, Sumi has worked and consulted for a range of cultural and educational institutions including Tate, National Portrait Gallery, Frieze, Sotheby’s Institute, Richmond University and the American Institute for Foreign Study and was Acting Chief Executive and Director of Cultural Programmes at Asia House.
Andrew Marcus
Andrew is a communications, brand and marketing consultant, facilitator and coach. He was previously Chief Communications Officer at Executive Board level at the Museum of London responsible for PR, marketing, social media and public affairs. His focus was on redefining the museum’s brand and attracting greater numbers of people who are more representative of London.
Riwa Saab
Riwa is a Young Shubbak and Barbican Young Poets alumnus and interdisciplinary artist, specialising in theatre directing, poetry and singer songwriting. She recently completed a BA in Performance and Creative Enterprise at Guildhall School of Music and Drama.