Mattel Hires Dunne
Mattel announced that Jessica Dunne was appointed general manager and senior vice-president, consumer products, responsible for overseeing licensing for Mattel’s brands including Barbie, Hot Wheels, Monster High, Fisher-Price, and American Girl. Dunne also joins Mattel’s leadership team, a group of senior executives comprising the direct reports of Mattel’s CEO as well as select functional senior executives.
Previously, Dunne served as executive vice-president, licensing, Disney Classic Characters and Disney Baby. Prior to joining Disney Consumer Products, Dunne worked for Cartoon Network.
Reporting to Tim Kilpin, executive vice-president, global brands team—boys and girls, and David Allmark, executive vice-president, global brands team—Fisher-Price, Dunne will also support Jean McKenzie, executive vice-president of American Girl.
Appointments at HIT
HIT Entertainment, a division of Mattel, announced changes to its structure last week, which will centralize content creation and production in the UK office. Edward Catchpole was named senior vice-president of HIT Brands. HIT says that a renewed focus will be placed on tentpole events for brands such as Thomas & Friends and Mike the Knight.
“HIT Brands’ broadcast content is often a child’s first introduction to HIT properties and also an important gateway to the rest of the Mattel family of brands and products,” says David Allmark, executive vice-president of Fisher-Price. “Centralizing resources to accelerate HIT’s ability to source, nurture, and distribute brand content will greatly enhance our storytelling capabilities to preschoolers around the world.”
In addition Sid Mathur has been named vice-president, HIT Americas. Mathur will head the HIT Americas’ operations from the New York City office reporting directly into Catchpole. He will lead the strategic direction for the Americas including licensing, home entertainment, live events, broadcast, and retail. He previously served as senior director for corporate strategy and development at Mattel.
HIT also says that the position of vice-president of content development, based in London, will be named at a later date.
MGA Hires Whitehead
MGA Entertainment appointed Lauren Whitehead vice-president of domestic licensing. She will be responsible for creating, maintaining, and growing domestic licensing programs and partnerships for MGA brand initiatives, and expanding the licensing activities for all MGA and Little Tikes product categories.
Her previous post was at Jakks Pacific.
ITV Hires Harris
ITV Studios Global Entertainment (ITVS GE) has announced the appointment of Maggy Harris as its new head of brand marketing, consumer products. In her new role, she will be responsible for strategic and operational brand marketing support across merchandising, retail, and promotions.
She joins the company from Ignition Licensing. Previously, she has worked for Copyrights, DRi, and Hallmark.