Our Founding Team

Mau and Alex are the beating heart of Thread Studios. They are backed up by an incredibly talented and professional network of creatives, producers, data scientists, investigators, most with a forces background.

Mauricio Gris

Founder - Creative, Network and Investigative lead.

Mau cut his teeth on the British Army's Combat Camera Team, completing three tours of Afghanistan before turning his lens on the world's most urgent stories. His work has appeared on Netflix, Channel 4, BBC and PBS. His directorial debut — Frontline Fighting: The Brits Battling ISIS — was long-listed for a BAFTA. He directed one of the most-watched episodes of Unreported World ever made. He has advised the BBC on high-risk operations and filmmaking for the Fondazione Prada. Most recently he executive producer the RTS winning Death In Dubai.

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Alex Farquharson

Founder - Operations, Business and Production lead.

Alex started her career in financial PR before falling in love with documentary and co-founding Thread. She has led the team across four continents — from tattoos in the British military to Ukrainian EOD volunteers to Afghan Special Forces. Selected for the prestigious Creative England Female Founders Scale Up Programme, she holds a Masters in International Relations from the University of Nottingham Ningbo and currently serves on the Skills East Sussex Creative, Cultural, Digital and Media Task Group.

The Advisory Board

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Ash Alexander-Cooper

Ash Alexander-Cooper OBE is a former soldier, world-championship athlete and international musician whose three-decade career took him to some of the world's most challenging environments. Wounded multiple times in service, he brings to Thread's advisory board a hard-won understanding of adversity, leadership under pressure, and the resilience that comes from operating at the sharp end. Now an international keynote speaker and strategic advisor, Ash works with organisations navigating complexity and change.

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Laura Eversden is a London-based media and entertainment lawyer with deep expertise across intellectual property, music licensing, joint ventures and corporate law. Currently Head of Legal at Global, and with a background in private practice at Bray & Krais Solicitors, Laura brings to Thread's advisory board the kind of rigorous legal grounding that investigative and commercial production increasingly demands, from rights architecture to partnership structuring.

Laura Petch

Simon Berthon is a novelist, historian and BAFTA-winning documentary producer whose career spans literary fiction, narrative non-fiction and landmark television. Simon brings to Thread's advisory board a rare combination of editorial rigour, broadcast craft and storytelling range. He is exactly the kind of voice that keeps investigative production honest.

Simon Berthon

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Fiona is a senior leader in customer success and account management with over twelve years of experience scaling global teams across SaaS, financial services and procurement. Having operated across EMEA, the US and APAC at enterprise level, she brings to Thread's advisory board a sharp commercial intelligence — particularly around revenue growth, partnership strategy and long-term client relationships. In a business where the gap between great storytelling and sustainable commercial models is the defining challenge, Fiona's expertise in turning client relationships into lasting value is exactly the kind of thinking Thread needs around the table.