The Salon Selects Inaugural Class For Mentorship Program

The Salon is doing the heavy lifting when it comes to elevating South Asian talent in the entertainment industry and to do that, they have selected the participants for the inaugural Salon Mentorship Program. Led by Disney’s Reena Singh, Hillman Grad’s Rishi Rajani, Writ Large manager Bash Naran, actor/comedian Nik Dodani (Atypical), and actor/producer Vinny Chhibber (The Red Line), the program has revealed its 23 mentors and mentees.

The individuals participating in The Salon Mentorship Program were selected from a nationwide pool of over 850 candidates recruited through an open application. After a thorough review and interview process, the finalists were paired with a mentor in one of five tracks: writing, acting, producing, directing, or executive leadership. The mentees will work closely with their respective mentors over the course of one year to identify areas of growth, discuss strategy, and expand opportunities. Mentees will also have exclusive access to monthly educational programming
curated by The Salon.

“Over the summer, we received hundreds of applications, which is a sign that a mentorship program like ours is long overdue. Rising South Asian talent need to look up to experienced artists and executives and see themselves,” said Singh.

Rajani added, “We thank the mentors for their willingness to give back to our community and
we hope that someday our mentees will reach a point in their careers where they are inspired to lift up the next generation.”

“A quarter of the world’s population is South Asian. That’s 1 in 4 humans,” said Dodani, Naran and Chhibber in a joint statement. “We’re building a pipeline that will hopefully help the industry reflect the world as it is.”

Read the complete list of mentees and mentors below.

WRITING MENTEES

Gauri Adelkar
Jyotsna Hariharan
Luveza Mubashar
Nikita Mungarwadi
Madiha Shafqat
Nayna Agrawal
Sidrah Mahmood

DIRECTING MENTEES

Abhishek Raghavan
Priya Minhas
Nardeep Khurmi
Raj Trivedi
Ijaaz Noohu
Shubhangi Shekhar

PRODUCING MENTEES

Riya Data
Joban Gill
Mariam Sheikh
Tishna Lodi

EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP MENTEES

Samantha Sharma
Megha Kohli
Anjali Patel
Apoorva Charan

ACTING MENTEES

Hina Khan
Kausar Mohammed

MENTORS

Neil Thomas (Director of Television, MRC)
Sara Rastogi (SVP, Hoorae Film & TV)
Nirokhi Raychaudhuri (Manager, Netflix)
Nick Krishnamurthy (VP, Esmail Corp.)
Anu Valia (Writer/Director, Never Have I Ever, Awkwafina Is Nora From Queens)
Punam Patel (Actor, Special),
Sanjay Shah (Writer/Co-showrunner, Central Park),
Simran Baidwan (Co-Executive Producer, Manifest),
Meera Menon (Writer/Director, Farah Goes Bang, Ms Marvel)
Manish Dayal (Actor, The Resident)
Sri Rao (Writer/Director, The Actress)
Aneesh Chaganty (Writer/Director, Searching, Run)
Kabir Akhtar (Director/Producer, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, The Sex Lives of College Girls)
Amar Hansen (Manager, Anonymous Content)
Ameet Shukla (Producer, Cold Pursuit)
Smriti Mundhra (Creator/EP, Indian Matchmaking)
Milan Chakraborty (Exec. Producer, Plus One)
Vera Santamaria (EP/Writer, Pen15)
Bisha K. Ali (Writer/EP, Ms Marvel)
Chitra Sampath (Co-Executive Producer, Truth Be Told)
Urooj Sharif (Manager, Original Series, Netflix)
Christine D’Souza Gelb (Producer/Manager, 2AM)
Rishi Rajani (President, Hillman Grad Productions)