Meet the Team

Our team of qualified coordinators represent diverse identities to cover a wide variation of production needs. We work together to ensure a safety net for production, and to enable handover within a consistent system.

  • Intimacy Coordinator & KIS Founder/Director Ethnicity: Anglo-Celtic Australian & Indigenous Panamanian (Latina) Languages: English, German, Spanish, some Italian, French, Czech

    Michela Carattini is a Gadigal/Sydney-based, SAG-AFTRA accredited, Intimacy Coordinator. Known for her intimacy work on star-studded Australian series, such as Nine Perfect Strangers and While The Men Are Away, Michela has worked in the Arts & Entertainment industry for over 30 years, and is also a qualified mental health, consent and trauma specialist. The first in the world to be insured with public liability and professional indemnity under the title of ‘Intimacy Coordinator”, she consulted on the MEAA (Australian Equity) panel for the creation of Australia’s National Intimate Scene Guidelines, and developed the only Australia-based training curriculum for Intimacy Coordinators. She created and instructed the first Intimacy Coordination Workshop for Directors & Producers at AFTRS, and is a founding member of the Australasian Intimacy Coordination Network. Read Full Bio

  • Intimacy Coordinator & KIS Co-Founder Ethnicity: Wiradjuri-Gadigal (First Nations Australian) & Anglo-Celtic Australian Languages: English, some Wiradjuri, Gadigal

    Akala Newman is a Gadigal/Sydney-based Intimacy Coordinator and Workshop Facilitator. She is a proud Wiradjuri/Gadigal multi-disciplinary performer, songwriter, educator and cultural producer, who brings cultural care practices to all of her work. A First Nations Academic Lecturer and Student Coordinator at the National Art School, an Artist Educator at the Museum of Contemporary Arts, she is also a Research Assistant at University of New South Wales. With Key Intimate Scenes, Australia, she is most proud to have worked on Whitefella Yella Tree (Griffin Theatre) and While The Men are Away (Arcadia/ SBS). Read Full Bio

  • Intimacy Coordinator & KIS Co-Founder Ethnicity: Syrian Arab Languages: English, Arabic (several dialects)

    Adeeb Razzouk is a Gadigal/Sydney-based Intimacy Coordinator and Workshop Facilitator. A successful Syrian actor, director, content creator and Theatre of the Oppressed instructor, he most recently appeared in House of Gods and is currently working on the experimental theatre and film experience Light Room Show. As an arts facilitator and youth worker for the Community Migrant Resource Centre, he produced Art Ground, a community arts event for CALD-identifying artists and performers, and Voice Memo, a sound collage of refugee experiences for online broadcast drama. Adeeb is thrilled to bring Intimacy Professionalism to the Arabic-speaking industry. Intimacy credits include shorts The Duke & The Raja, and A Room in the City, KXT’s Breathing Corpses, and several workshops for Poetry in Motion. Read Full Bio

  • Intimacy Coordinator & Workshop Facilitator Ethnicity: African American Languages: English, Japanese

    Asabi Goodman is an Intimacy Coordinator and Workshop Facilitator based in Meanjin-Yuggera Country (Brisbane). Asabi is Equity Board President for Queensland, as well as an exceptional singer and performer in her own right (starring in the national tours of Chicago and Hairspray), and brings with her 20 years experience as a municipal and industrial engineer. She trained as an IC with IDC’s Australian Equity Programme and has been supporting stage and screen productions ever since.

  • Intimacy Coordinator & KIS Head of Training Ethnicity: Anglo-Celtic American Languages: English, some Maori

    Dr. Lori Leigh (she/they) is an award-winning Wellington-based artist and educator, and one of the most qualified and experienced intimacy coordinators in Aotearoa New Zealand. For over a decade, Lori has been a Senior Lecturer in the Theatre Programme at Victoria University of Wellington. As an educator, Lori has taught intimacy workshops for Victoria University of Wellington, Te Auaha Creative Centre, Shakespeare Globe Centre New Zealand, BATS Theatre, the New Zealand International Fringe Festival, and Entertainment Technology New Zealand (ETNZ). Recent intimacy credits for Lori include Intimacy Coordinator for the Royal New Zealand Ballet’s (RNZB) 2022 production of Cinderella, choreographed by Loughlan Prior, which saw staged the first queer kiss of the RNZB; intimacy assistant on the SBS television series “While the Men Are Away”, and theatre productions of Sweeney Todd and The Three Sisters. Read Full Bio

  • KIS Supervision Counselor

    Gene Niblack is one of our Mental Health Supervision Counselors. After a long stint as Mental Health Services Manager at Southwestern Sydney Local Health, he now teaches at Excelsia College and the Australian College of Applied Professions as a professor of Diversity in Professional Practice (Counselling) and Introduction to Contemporary Society (Sociology).

  • KIS Supervision Counselor

  • KIS Instructor & Supervision Counselor

    Gene Niblack is one of our Mental Health Supervision Counselors. After a long stint as Mental Health Services Manager at Southwestern Sydney Local Health, he now teaches at Excelsia College and the Australian College of Applied Professions as a professor of Diversity in Professional Practice (Counselling) and Introduction to Contemporary Society (Sociology).

Previous Team Members

  • Intimacy Coordinator & Workshop Facilitator