Category: You’re Hired

The Toy Association announced the election of six new members and three term renewals to its Board of Directors to serve two-year terms. The announcement was made during The Toy Association’s Annual General Meeting, which was open to all members. The meeting opened with remarks from Board Chair Aaron Muderick, founder & executive chair of Crazy Aaron’s, who reflected on the state of the industry, expressed openness to feedback at any time from members and representatives across the toy and play community, and offered thoughts on the exciting build-up to a reimagined Toy Fair 2023 this September.

The Toy Foundation (TTF) announced the appointment of Andy Quartin, CEO of Thames & Kosmos, LLC, as Chair of the Foundation’s Board of Trustees and Kathleen Campisano, global chief marketing officer & general manager of Beacon Media Group, as Vice Chair. Together, Quartin and Campisano will lead TTF in its new strategic action plan to unite the toy industry behind the shared commitment to create a world where every child has the opportunity to experience comfort, joy, and the extraordinary physical, emotional, and educational benefits of play.

Falcon’s Beyond, a leading fully integrated global entertainment development company specializing in intellectual property (IP) creation and expansion, has named Simon Philips, an accomplished entertainment industry executive, as President, a newly created position for the company. Philips, whose visionary approach to brand building has helped shape the strategic direction of some of the world’s most iconic franchises – including Disney, Pixar, Star Wars, Marvel, CoComelon, Pokémon, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles…

Toonz Entertainment, the distribution wing of global kids and family entertainment major Toonz Media Group has announced the appointments of Bernhard Stephan as Director, Commercial Distribution and Maria Romanelli as Senior Sales Manager for Italy. These newly created roles in the sales arm are part of Toonz Entertainment restructuring with the aim to become a leading distribution partner across different geographies. Mr. Bernhard Stephan started his media career in 2000 with TV Loonland AG as Head of Licensing before moving on to Discovery Networks as Manager EMEA in the Program Sales & Licensing Division (today Warner Media), based in Munich & Moscow. He has also worked as Country Manager Russia & CEE at Red Bull Media House (representing and managing all media of Red Bull Media House & Terra Mater Studios), based in Moscow and took management roles as CCO at YFE AG and Head of Media at Animaccord.

Xilam Animation, an independent animation production and distribution company, announces the promotions of Cécile Hergaux-Essame to General Manager of the Xilam Group’s subsidiary, Cube Creative; Caterina Gonnelli-Linden to Chief Content Officer (CCO) and Guillaume Jallot to Chief Technical Officer (CTO).

Disguise, Incorporated, a leading global costume and dress up company, and a division of toy and consumer products manufacturer, JAKKS Pacific, announced new key hires for the international sales team in the UK and Ireland, showing continued commitment to these markets, Aneesa Beasley as Head of Sales and Meghan Bird as Senior Account Manager. In addition, Disguise brings on Mike McGillion as full time VP of Sales for Disguise EMEA. For the past year, Mike’s consultancy has been instrumental in leading the charge throughout the EU, expanding the costume business through new distribution and retail partnerships and delivering aggressive sales growth for the company.

The Insights Family, the global leader in kids, teens, parents, and family market intelligence, continues to expand as part of its new growth strategy with a further eight new hires, following on from the recent appointments of new Chief Growth Officer – Tom Williams, and SVP Marketing & Partnerships – Rachel Bardill. The further Insights Family eight hires are from across the business including the company’s technology, research, customer success and support functions. The roles are intended to support the Manchester based organizations transition from a fast-growth scale-up to a high-performance, fast-growth organization.

YuMe Toys’ growth and success continues with the appointment of Carson Murray as VP for North America. Carson will be based out of the YuMe office in Toronto, covering the North American region. –Carson joins YuMe from Funko, where he spent the last five years of his career, most recently as the Country Head for Canada. Among his many successes, Carson points to securing a nationwide placement, in almost every retailer and retail channel, in the Canadian market, as one of the key achievements of his success.