After graduating from college at Harvard and law school at Berkeley, Banks returned to his home state of Texas to work as a civil rights attorney. Several years later, hoping to add to his already staggering student loan debt, Banks returned to school to attend Stanford’s nonfiction filmmaking program. While there, he directed several music videos that appeared on MTV and the award-winning documentary Watch Me Jumpstart, about the legendary, down-in-the-basement rock band Guided By Voices.

In 1997, Banks joined the senior staff of MTV’s News and Documentaries Department, where he developed and supervised the hit documentary series True Life. In addition to supervising the first several seasons, Banks also produced and directed many of the most popular and highest-rated True Life episodes in the history of the series, including Pro Wrestler, Porn Star, and Summer Share on the Jersey Shore. Banks also created and produced the pioneering two-hour special First Year, and supervised and produced many of MTV’s pro-social documentaries, including Candidate (about two young candidates for Congress) and Aftermath of Terror (about the role one New Jersey city played in the 9/11 attack).

Banks is often referred to as the “good cop” at Left/Right, famous for his ability to reach consensus and to calm the nerves of jittery staffers and clients. This cool demeanor also allows him to play hilarious pranks on unsuspecting staff members, who can never seem to tell when he’s just messing with them.

Ken graduated from film school at NYU and began his career as a cinematographer, focusing primarily on documentaries. Along the way, he was afforded the opportunity to collaborate with and learn from many of the best and the brightest storytellers in nonfiction.

When the reality television craze took hold, Ken parlayed his experience as a cameraman into new opportunities as a producer and director on shows of all shapes and sizes for networks such as A&E and Discovery. At the same time, he launched a production company that created documentaries, commercials, and promotional films. This ability to alternate between gritty documentary projects and glossier commercial work, and to merge such disparate job descriptions and styles, has been invaluable in his work as an executive producer.

But fate—and a mafia princess—would soon bring Ken together with his partner Banks Tarver. They first joined forces as showrunners on the hit series Growing Up Gotti for A&E. The premiere episode received one of the highest ratings in the network’s history, and was chosen as one of the 10 best shows of the year by The New York Times—the only unscripted series to make the list. Following this successful collaboration, Ken and Banks formalized their partnership by creating Left/Right. Remarkably, that all happened nearly 15 years (and 20 pounds) ago.

Ken enjoys identifying and hiring smart people and taking credit for their great work. He also likes to write in the third person, on the off chance that it will disguise the fact that he is writing this very blurb himself.

Kevin Vargas is the Chief Operating Officer of Left/Right, and as such he oversees all operations, production, and business affairs at the company. He has been instrumental in creating and refining the company’s operations and financial architecture, as well as being responsible for its ongoing finance/accounting and business affairs. Kevin has been with Left/Right since its inception, and has had an active hand in producing every one of its shows. His sound judgment and business acumen have been essential to the company’s success.

During his career, Kevin has produced well over 1,000 episodes of television across all genres, including award winning nonfiction series (This American Life, The Circus, Frontline), scripted series (Odd Mom Out, Misfits & Monsters), documentary/reality series, daily “strip” shows, game shows, food/travel series, commercials, and documentary films.

Anneka Jones began her career at MTV, where she worked as a producer for the network’s News & Docs division for nearly eight years. She was particularly involved in the network’s more serious documentary fare, and worked on documentaries about drug addiction, racism, and other tough subjects. She joined Left/Right at its inception because her experiences and tastes are as varied as the projects we produce.

Anneka is that rare mix of both development executive and showrunner: she can come up with a great idea and see it all the way through production and post. Since its inception, she’s had a hand in virtually every pilot or series that we’ve produced, and she continues to play an active role in all ongoing series production. Anneka is also responsible for all below-the-line staffing for our series and pilots, and she relies upon her extensive database of freelance crew whenever we staff up for a new project.

Michael Mezaros has been an integral part of the Left/Right team since our first series, overseeing all aspects of post production. Mike has played a key role in the design and management of our extensive post-production facilities, and in building the workflows and teams that keep those facilities humming. From the edit bay to color correction to audio mix, Mike and his department help elevate our programming both technically and creatively.

Mike is also a valued writer and producer at the company, having served on feature documentaries about figures as varied as Einstein, Lincoln, Jefferson, and Jesus. Through his work on Brad Meltzer's Lost History and America's 9/11 Flag: Rise from the Ashes, Mike was also a vital member of the team that helped recover the long-lost Ground Zero Flag—raised by firefighters on 9/11, then missing for years—and helped return it to New York City while documenting the historic moment. That experience led to other films exploring the events and aftermath of 9/11, including 15 Septembers Later, 9/11: Four Flights, and Rise & Fall: The World Trade Center.

A lifelong science fiction fan, physical restraints would have been necessary to keep Mike from becoming involved with one of his favorite projects: James Cameron's Story of Science Fiction, for AMC. Fortunately, it didn't come to that.

Pete began his career at Court TV, where he developed true crime series and documentaries, and played an integral role during the rebrand of the network to truTV and the launch of its first slate of series. He then spent four years as Head of Development for IMG Productions, the production division of the global sports, fashion, and media company IMG (now Endeavor). At IMG Productions, Pete spearheaded the creation of the entertainment department and developed and produced formats, reality projects, sports documentaries, and live events for a wide range of networks. He also served as a consultant on TV and digital projects across the other IMG divisions, including Fashion, Models, Clients & Broadcasting, and Action Sports.

Since joining Left/Right in 2014, Pete and his team have created, developed, and sold projects across a wide range of genres, including The Zoo and The Aquarium for Animal Planet, Biography: The Trump Dynasty for A&E, Tricky Dick for CNN, First Family of Hip Hop for Bravo, TruInside for truTV, Generation X for Nat Geo, The Hair Goddess for TLC, and multiple specials for History. As SVP of Unscripted Development, Pete oversees a large slate of diverse projects that truly reflects Left/Right’s “mass and class” brand—smart, artfully-crafted shows that appeal to a wide audience—from premium doc anthologies to live events and international formats.

Pete was born in the Bronx and raised in Pleasantville, New York—an incongruity that has given his friends years of ball-breaking pleasure. He’s a graduate of Princeton University.

Frank Koughan was lured from his quiet home in Querétaro, Mexico to join the Left/Right team when the company was producing a true crime series called Rich & Reckless. But cadavers and cold-blooded killers could only hold his attention for so long, and he soon turned his attention towards the comparatively placid field of historical documentaries. However, his first two highly-rated History Channel specials also dealt with the deceased: Stealing Lincoln's Body and The Real Face of Jesus. His follow-up film, about Thomas Jefferson, also begins with the founding father on his deathbed. It was around this time that Frank decided to turn his attention back to current events.

Frank now heads up the documentary unit at Left/Right that is responsible for multiple episodes of the acclaimed PBS series Frontline. Over the last several years, Frank has produced or supervised nearly a dozen Frontline projects, ranging from an exploration of the high school dropout crisis in America (Dropout Nation) to the tragic school shootings in Newtown, CT (Raising Adam Lanza) to a troubling case involving the suicide of a police officer’s girlfriend (A Death In St. Augustine), among many others. Frank’s enviable skills as a writer, researcher, and interviewer have been essential to the growth of the company’s long-form and feature documentary work, and we are proud to have him on our team.

Prior to his work with Left/Right, Frank produced documentaries for Bill Moyers and Dan Rather Reports, and spent eight years working on the legendary CBS News series 60 Minutes. He has won two Emmy Awards, a Columbia DuPont Award, a George Polk Award, and a Loeb Award. The fact that only the last award came with any sort of cash prize (two grand, split three ways) was a major factor in his relocation to Mexico.

Michael LaHaie is that rare producer, director, and editor who has somehow managed to straddle the worlds of narrative and documentary, comedy and drama, production and post.

As an editor, Michael collaborated on George Ratliff’s acclaimed documentary Hell House, which premiered at the Toronto Film festival and has become something of a cult classic. He also worked with Chris Eigeman on his feature debut Turn the River, starring Famke Janssen and Rip Torn (nominated for an Indie Spirit Award in 2009). He teamed up with George Ratliff for a second time on the feature Salvation Boulevard, which starred Jennifer Connelly, Ed Harris, and Pierce Brosnan and premiered at the Sundance film festival. Michael's television credits also run the scripted-to-unscripted gamut, from multiple seasons of Bravo's landmark reality series Queer Eye For The Straight Guy to the acclaimed Adult Swim scripted comedy Delocated. At Left/Right, Michael has worked on many different productions, most notably serving as Co-Executive Producer and showrunner on seasons one and two of our beloved series Small Town Security.

Michael's background as an editor, his ability to layer stories with unexpected moments and surprises, and his singular focus on understanding and empathizing with protagonists and antagonists alike are the key elements that bind his work together. He also suffers from an acute addiction to fine dining and live music, which requires constant income to support the habit.

Over the last 15+ years, Geoff has cut everything from news and documentaries, to comedies and drama, to competition and [pause] let’s call it…unscripted. He has been a major creative contributor and editor for some of cable television's stand-out and highest-rated series, including LA Ink (TLC), America Revealed (PBS), and Amish Mafia (Discovery), and he also worked on two award-winning feature documentaries, Note By Note: The Making of Steinway L1037 and Brick By Brick, a documentary that chronicles segregation in the Yonkers public school system.

For Left/Right, Geoff has applied his talents to many of our biggest and best shows across a wide range of genres—from Mob Wives (VH1) to Jesus: The Lost 40 Days and Roanoke: Search for the Lost Colony (History) to The Circus (Showtime), and many others. More recently, Geoff has served as Co-Executive Producer and Supervising Editor on Pivot’s critically acclaimed Human Resources and on AMC's travel docu-series Ride with Norman Reedus.

When he’s not in a dark room attempting to answer questions like “how many frames is considered a beat?” [read: 12], Geoff is at home with his wife and three young boys. Most likely, there’s a glass of Bulleit nearby.

Esther Dere has spent nearly two decades working in television, with vast experience across multiple genres and in all facets of the industry. Her work has been recognized with an Emmy Nomination, an IDA Award, and an approving look from her beloved dog Marvin.

Based in New York by way of Los Angeles, British-born and raised Esther cut her teeth in public relations working on consumer, lifestyle, and fashion brands before making the jump into producing and directing documentaries and series, often with a focus on the fashion, music, and pop culture spaces—and always with a visual flair. Her projects have included The Grass is Greener for Netflix and Empires of New York for CNBC, and she has produced and directed projects for the likes of HBO, A&E, ABC, CBS & VH1.

When she’s not keeping the lights on late at the office, you’re likely to find her training at the boxing gym…or training Marvin in the park.

Divya Chungi stumbled into a career in television as a wide-eyed college intern at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. After a few years working in programming and development for cable networks including truTV and H2, Divya transitioned to freelance producing on Frontline's Raising Adam Lanza with Left/Right. She then produced for a variety of production companies around New York City on a range of subjects including competition, travel, food, culture, and politics, including Netflix’s 7 Days Out, on the reopening of the number one restaurant in the world, Eleven Madison Park, and Taste the Nation with Padma Lakshmi: Holiday Edition, for which she received a James Beard Award.

Divya has worked consistently with Left/Right over the years, traveling to tropical locales for HGTV's Life shows, discovering all things animal-related on Animal Planet's The Zoo and The Zoo: San Diego, and diving into America's political maelstrom for Emmy-nominated The Circus, for which she served as Executive Producer for three seasons.

Divya's passion for cracking stories and her ability to remain calm amidst chaos has made her career very fulfilling and enjoyable—although if pressed she might admit that the free food and swag is a big part of the appeal.

Jeremy is a gifted cameraman and still photographer who has been with the company since its inception. He frequently serves as the Director of Photography on various Left/Right productions, and is an essential member of our creative team. In addition to his contributions on set, Jeremy serves as a technical advisor across all Left/Right pilots and series, and oversees the team responsible for the company’s substantial camera and lighting department. Jeremy is talented, tireless, and highly organized...three virtues that are all too uncommon in unscripted production.

Bridget Stout leads the Human Resources department at Left/Right. She has a diverse background studying business, art history, and Italian studies. Her intellectual curiosity about people and organizations drives her passion to create happy and meaningful workplaces. Before joining our Left/Right team, she spent six years as the Director of Human Resources at a nonprofit organization in the global education field.

Although she’s originally from Pennsylvania, Bridget now lives in Upstate Manhattan where she strives to provide HR support to her family. Along with her daughter and husband, she volunteers at her local school, and even feeds stray cats. When she isn’t problem solving in the office or throughout her community, you can find her sailing on the Hudson River or curled up with a fiction novel.

I’m not sure why they hired me
But I’ve been here for years
Started out in PHOTOGRAPHY
Then LIVED MY BEST LIFE with OPRAH
Lived in RUN’S HOUSE for several years
Tried to APPRENTICE for DONALD, then MARTHA
Somewhere in-between I WANTED TO BE A HILTON
Got CUT by TOMMY HILFIGER
Tried to keep up with KIMORA in the FAB LANE
Drove a CAB full of CASH and nabbed an Emmy
Didn’t really WANT TO WORK FOR DIDDY…but did anyways
SCORED THE DEAL and worked on THE FASHION SHOW
Then got serious on 15 SEPTEMBERS LATER and AMERICA’S 9/11 FLAG
Not going to be WOMAN OF THE YEAR
But know a thing about BIBLE RULES and BRAD MELTZER
Eventually I will look for a new LIFE—be it in HAWAII, MEXICO, the CARIBBEAN, or on an ISLAND elsewhere.

Stuart hails from across the pond in London, where he worked for the BBC, ITV, and numerous other production companies on programmes (A.K.A. ‘programs’) as diverse as Saturday Night Takeaway, The Royal Variety Performance, the London Olympics, and The Friday Night Project. After stints working in New York and Sydney, he became Head of Production at Predictable Media in London for two years before upping sticks and returning to New York in 2014, where he joined Left/Right as a Line Producer—shepherding shows such as 3AM, Uncorked, The Zoo, Frontline, and numerous seasons of The Circus.

He regularly perplexes people with British slang. Smashing.

After many years of freelance production work in New York City, Michelene Starnadori originally came to Left/Right in the fall of 2007 to work on the Salt-N-Pepa Show for VH1. In the blink of an eye, five and a half years as a Left/Right staffer went by—working on projects including Small Town Security for AMC, Portraits from Ground Zero for A&E, and multiple episodes of Frontline. During this time she also re-created the famous Milgram experiment, produced a flash mob at the Grove in Los Angeles, and even helped to resurrect Jesus.

In 2012, Michelene took a break from TV production to serve as SVP of Production at Jingle Punks, a leading music production and creative agency—overseeing a staff of composers, music supervisors, content creators, and producers in New York, Los Angeles, and Toronto. Then, in 2019, Michelene returned to her roots in television and reunited with her Left/Right family, serving as Executive in Charge of Left/Right productions for clients including Amazon, CNN, Discovery, MAX, and AMC ever since.

Anyone who knows Michelene knows that in her spare time you can find her passionately rooting for her favorite Philly sports teams…but only a select few know that she also dreams of one day owning and operating her own roller skating rink.

Marlon has worked in television since he was old enough to assemble a sequence. He began as a producer, exploring exotic locales ranging from inside a flight simulator to the deck of an Army Ranger Black Hawk to under the hood of the monster truck known as Bigfoot. Before long however, Marlon realized that his true calling was not in the field but in the bay: alone in a dark room, basking in the flickering blue light of a computer screen as he quietly drowns in raw footage.

Marlon has shaped the editorial direction for highly rated and long-running series and specials. His work has appeared on networks including AMC, PBS, Showtime, Discovery, History Nat Geo, and many others. He prides himself on finding the last hope in tragedy, and by sneaking wide shots into comedies. For Left/Right, Marlon has added his vision and late night delirium to such varied projects as Small Town Security, Donny!, and 15 Septembers Later, among many other varied titles.

An amateur home chef, Marlon is as comfortable with culinary mis en place as he is with editorial mis en scene. He is a graduate of UC Berkeley, where he majored in a field once referred to as Mass Communication.

Susan Naples was born and raised in New Jersey, but it was while studying abroad in Sydney, Australia that she first developed a passion for broadcasting and decided to pursue a career in television. Susan worked a variety of jobs in both the field and post, but her knack for staying cool under fire—and juggling a hundred different problems at once—made her ideally suited to the job of Post Production Supervisor.

Today, as part of our executive team, Susan not only oversees individual series and specials but manages an entire crew of Post Production Supervisors, Assistant Editors, Online Editors, and more.

In her [increasingly rare] free time, Susan enjoys gardening, puzzles, and tackling DIY home renovation projects. She also takes pleasure in annoying her family by offering QC notes as they watch TV together.

Steve Yaccino began his career in journalism, publishing stories in magazines such as Esquire, Chicago Magazine, and U.S. News & World Report. After joining the New York Times's Chicago bureau, he traversed an eleven-state region covering the Midwest and Great Plains for the newspaper's National section—reporting on everything from shootings to tornados, trials, protests, local legislatures, and national elections. He also spent a year helping the Times cover Detroit's historic bankruptcy. As a political reporter and TV news producer for Bloomberg, he moved to New York to cover the 2014 midterms and 2016 presidential election.

Steve started working at Left/Right in 2017 as a senior producer for The Circus, our political documentary series for Showtime, where he spent four seasons covering the Trump presidency and 2020 election. He has also developed and/or produced a number of other series for Left/Right, including Biography: The Trump Dynasty for A&E and The Murdochs: Empire of Influence for CNN.

When not working, Steve lives with his family in the Southern Catskills, where you might find him fly fishing, chainsawing, or obsessing about his failing vegetable garden.

After graduating from New York University, Stephanie began her career as an assistant in the editorial department of The New York Times Magazine. One of the perks of the job was getting to edit the “Letters to the Editor” column, which involved talking to some of the magazine’s most zealous readers. She left The Grey Lady to pursue her silver screen dreams. After a brief and wondrous stint sorting mail for William Morris Endeavor, she found herself at Left/Right.

Today, as the company’s Manager of Development, Stephanie’s duties include but [unfortunately] are not limited to tracking the dozens of projects Left/Right currently has in development, along with seemingly endless time spent researching, lending a hand on productions, writing treatments, and providing companionship at lunchtime.

Originally from Maryland, Peter Osinski started his career shooting and editing for commercial and government clients in the DC area. In 2013, he moved to New York to pursue broadcast post production as an assistant editor—but quickly shifted focus to post-production engineering.

Since Peter started at Left/Right in 2019, he’s helped guide us through dozens of series and one pandemic. The latter completely changed the way we operate, with Peter and his team moving our entire editorial staff to remote work within three weeks. In the years since, he’s led the redesign and construction of nearly every aspect of our technical infrastructure, which is now built for the flexibility of a hybrid workforce while being more robust and resilient than ever before.

When time allows, Peter enjoys stepping away from technology completely with a variety of hobbies that keep him in the great outdoors, usually near the water…and preferably in an area without cell service.

Gregory Littauer studied post production and video editing in college, but his passion for television and film dates back to the fifth grade—when he first joined his school theater’s stage crew. Later, he ran the entire television production program at his high school. Today, as one of our Directors of Post Production, Greg oversees multiple teams and projects at Left/Right. He brings a unique level of dedication and attention to detail to our efforts, improving nearly every frame of television he touches.

When Greg isn’t working (that is: rarely), you can find him traveling—even if it’s "just" twenty miles offshore, fishing off the deck of his 26-foot-long, 4000-pound, twin-engine motorboat.

Nicole O'Donnell began her career in television at ABC News, where she worked as an overnight teleprompter operator. Not many viewers were watching (except for her mom), but Nicole fell in love with the insanely-paced environment of television production and post production. Fast forward to today, and millions of viewers have watched shows overseen in post by Nicole—shows improved in myriad ways by her love of organization, remarkable problem solving skills, and sharp eye for quality.

While juggling a never-ending series of difficult projects, and now helping lead our post department as one of our Directors of Post Production, Nicole somehow still manages to interject context-appropriate quotes from “Friends” into her day-to-day conversation.

Rose began working at Left/Right in 2011 as a Rights & Clearances Assistant, and rose (pun intended) through the ranks to Supervisor in the years that followed. She is our point person for network deliverables and clearance procedures. Managing a growing department that deals with a seemingly endless to-do list, Rose sees herself as a centrifuge of production: her job is to facilitate open communication between various departments in order to ensure that everyone is talking and all is in order.

Rose was born and raised on the south shore of Long Island, and presently resides (along with her cats Gizmo and Gato) in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. She is also the captain of Left/Right’s volleyball and softball teams, and as such has been crowned as our social coordinator or, as she prefers, Centrifuge Of After-Work Activities.

Ratidzo started her career in entertainment as most hungry new grads do: as an intern. Opportunity struck when she became the assistant to Oscar-nominated film director Ramin Bahrani (The White Tiger). Ratidzo then went on to spend two years at Innovative Artists before venturing off the scripted path and into unscripted territory. At Talos Films, her love for nonfiction grew as she crafted decks and organized archival footage. Now, as an Executive Assistant at Left/Right, she is an aficionado of calendars and development grids, and works with the development team on new ideas.

Born near the equator in Zimbabwe and raised in the sunniest parts of Northern California, Ratidzo has lived in Brooklyn for a near decade and bravely endures East Coast winters.