We all know that the licensing industry boasts many talented people working within it. So, we thought it would be fun – with a little imagination, a bottomless salary pot and our irresistible powers of persuasion – to put together the ultimate fantasy licensor. Here are the people we would want as custodians of our brands, right from the MD, through to the category managers and design, marketing and product approvals…

Managing Director

Carl Lumbard
Current role: SVP and MD Europe, 20th Century Fox Licensing & Merchandising

The man trusted with developing the licensing programme for one of the biggest brands in the world (ie, The Simpsons), Lumbard is the safe pair of hands we’ve chosen to head up our fantasy licensor.
Originally joining Fox in 1998, he already boasted over a decade of previous media experience at the likes of Pearson and BBC. Not only was Lumbard involved with the establishment of the European L&M division at Fox, as it grew he maintained a hands on role. He began as marketing and retail director, tasked with expanding Fox’s business in the licensing industry and developing The Simpsons across Europe, before becoming European sales director and then MD. Lumbard took up his current position in September 2007.
2009 saw him strike a number of major deals across the territory. Lumbard is responsible for the ongoing relationship with Ferrero – which has seen a selection of multi-territory, multi-property promotions – plus deals with Unilever (on The Simpsons Movie and Ice Age 3) and Renault (the firm’s ad campaign used The Simpsons to promote the Kangoo in 29 markets supported by TV, print and online). In addition, he scored a new partnership with Alimentos Y Eventos for a Simpsons branded food deal across all Cencosud stores in South America, while also leading Fox L&M to deliver the firm’s biggest international film merchandising programme in history for Ice Age 3, with retail partners ranging from C&A in Europe, La Falabella in Latin America, X5 in Russia and Casino IRTS worldwide.

Finance Director

Andrew Haydon
Current role: Commercial & Finance Director, Chapman Entertainment

Last seen by many in the industry waltzing with Fifi in the Chapman video Christmas card, Haydon is the man we trust with the money. But he’s not your average, run of the mill accountant – far from it.
For some 14 years, Haydon worked at John Reid Enterprises, one of the world’s largest entertainment management companies, with his primary responsibility during this time being to oversee the personal and professional, commercial and financial activities of its main artist, Elton John. He implemented ten world tours and over 1,500 concerts around the globe in venues seating up to 100,000 people.
Over the course of his career, Haydon directed a 30-strong management team, achieved significant sponsorship arrangements in the entertainment business and secured one of the largest single advance music record contracts in the industry. As well as Elton John, he also had similar responsibilities for artists including Lionel Ritchie, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Billy Connolly and Barry Humphries, while he was also responsible for overseeing the development and exploitation of Michael Flatley’s Lord of the Dance show. And, before joining Keith and Greg at Chapman, Haydon co-managed boy band Another Level - who scored a number one with Freak Me and supported Janet Jackson on tour during this time. Now that’s the kind of man we want in charge of our finances.

Head of Licensing

Andrew Carley
Current role: Head of Licensing, E1 Entertainment

Probably the toughest category as there are so many quality execs currently fulfilling this role across the business. Carley wins out, in part, thanks to a surge of recommendations from licensees and retailers for the entire E1 team and its performance, professionalism and good old fashioned likeability over the past 12 months.
Practically licensing industry royalty, before heading to Contender (as it was known then), Carley began at CPLG Sport handling FIFA, UEFA and The FA, before switching to the agency’s Entertainment division where he was involved with Dreamworks, Universal and Paramount as UK sales director for three years.
The enormous growth of Peppa Pig and, in particular, the way the licensing programme has steadily advanced over the last couple of years as Carley and his close knit team chose to let the show build naturally before rolling out product, won praise from licensees. A massive hit in the UK, Peppa Pig is now going international, with recent moves into Poland and Australia just two examples. Elsewhere, expect to see much more of Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom in 2010, while E1’s film licensing arm is currently getting its teeth into the Twilight saga.
Special mentions: There were many worthy candidates for this role, not least Graham Saltmarsh, licensing director for the UK, Benelux and Nordic at Turner CN Enterprises. His sterling work on Ben 10 – plus Bakugan and The Secret Saturdays – has won him many fans in the business. BBC Worldwide’s Richard Hollis, Aardman’s Sean Clarke, Angeles Blanco from RDF and Clare Shaw from Classic Media also all deserve a mention.

Category Manager: Toys & Gifts

Warren Traeger
Current role: Licensing Manager, Toys, Souvenirs & Gifts, London 2012

Before entering the licensing business proper, Traeger spent a staggering 18 years at Marks & Spencer, eight of which as a buyer across horticulture, confectionery and home accessories, which saw him come into contact with Kinnerton and the rest, as they say, is history.
Indeed, from there Traeger went on to become one of the first people to secure a Harry Potter licence and managed the co-ordination of one of the first cross category merchandise programme for the brand to coincide with the launch of the first movie. Having grown the M&S licensed confectionery business significantly, Traeger moved into the wider licensing world as senior licensing manager for toys and food at Entertainment Rights (now Classic Media) in 2004, managing the toy licensees for Postman Pat and also securing master toy partners for Guess with Jess and Rupert Bear.
A spell as UK licensing director for soft goods at Hit followed in 2007 – which saw Traeger strengthen relationships with the likes of Next, Mothercare, Bhs and M&S – while 2008 saw him managing the licensed portfolio at wooden toy firm DanJam.
He has been in his current role at London 2012 since March 2009 and, with just two years left until the games, expect to see a lot more of Traeger going forward.
Special mentions: Director of Toys in the UK for Disney Consumer Products, Simon Price has a fine pedigree within this sector. With one of the best portfolios in the business to play with, 2009 saw Price secure deals across all major toy categories for properties including Toy Story, Cars, Disney Princess, Disney Fairies, Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh and Handy Manny. UK licensing manager at Nickelodeon Joanna Bird, Jo Bruce, licensing executive at BBC Worldwide and Jo Adamson, UK licensing sales manager for hard goods at Hit were also highly recommended by licensees and retailers.

Category Manager: Publishing

Eric Huang
Current role: Category Publisher Brands & Licensing, Penguin UK

Huang has worked in licensed publishing for almost 15 years, with his career spanning numerous firms and continents.
He started as an assistant at Disney Publishing in Los Angeles, where his highlights included setting up the Nightmare Before Christmas book programme in Japan and launching the Toy Story programme. In 2001, Huang moved to Australia to take up the role of managing editor at Penguin in Melbourne, looking after the Disney and Dreamworks programmes, culminating in the Finding Nemo launch that doubled revenues of the licensed list. Three years later and he became publisher at Funtastic’s new book division, helping to grow the company to the number one licensed publisher in Australia.
In 2006, Huang moved to Europe and Parragon, to head up its international licensed publishing business out of the Bath office, before taking up his current role a year later. Over the past 12 months, Huang has helped double revenue for Penguin’s licensed children’s list and launched the first publishing programme for a virtual world, Club Penguin. In addition, the Peppa Pig 2008 book programme scooped the Best Licensed Written, Listening or Learning Range at last year’s Licensing Awards.
Special mentions: In the last year, Emma Cairns-Smith, head of licensing for Egmont UK, acquired Waybuloo and Timmy Time for the books division of Egmont and Ben 10 for the magazines business. Since joining Egmont from Dorling Kindersley in 2002, she has built up a solid portfolio for the publisher, mixing classic brands such as Fireman Sam, Wallace & Gromit and Postman Pat with newer properties including Shaun the Sheep, Numberjacks and LazyTown. Claire Harding and Richard Haines at HarperCollins are also worthy candidates.

Category Manager: Stationery

David Wootliff
Current role: Licensing Director, Hallmark Cards

Wootliff has a strong licensing background having previously held positions at Hasbro, Disney, Warner Bros Consumer Products and Corgi. At Hallmark for three and a half years, key properties include Forever Friends and Purple Ronnie, plus ranges from Warner Bros and Disney. Indeed, striking the Disney greeting card deal was a particular highlight of 2009, along with launching the Warner Bros and Lego product ranges. Wootliff was also responsible for securing the property everyone wants at the moment, Twilight, with a card range due in 2010.
Special mentions: Having worked with Wootliff during his time at WBCP, Rebecca French now manages the gift, home and stationery category, with Hallmark and GB Eye being significant partners. The craft area is also a focus for French, and the last year saw her sign new deals with Crafthouse Press and Hobby Habit. In addition, UK director for stationery at DCP, Claire Peacock also deserves a mention. Instrumental in the Hallmark deal, Peacock works across key franchises including Disney Princess, Disney Fairies, Cars, Winnie the Pooh and Hannah Montana.

Category Manager: Sports

Tom Roe
Current role: Commercial Manager, CPLG Sport

Another tough choice, but Roe just edges out his CPS stablemates. At CPLG Sport, Roe manages ECB, RFU, M-Sport and Wembley, while he is also active in FA deal making. Prior to this, he was licensing manager at IMG managing brands including Wimbledon, The Open, Ferrari, EA Sports and Le Mans 24 du Heures, while he was originally introduced to the world of sport licensing at the then Granada Ventures, where he looked after Arsenal and Liverpool among other non-sports properties.
Special mentions: While his role as VP of licensing at IMG doesn’t necessarily shout ‘sport’ now, in the past Simon Gresswell worked with players’ agents around the globe and football associations in Europe, plus brands including Wimbledon, the Ryder Cup, Pele and the Azzurri (the Italian national football team), so he’s certainly worthy of a mention. As are Gary Jacobson, commercial manager, and Nicola Lord, senior commercial manager, at CPLG Sport, both of whom have been responsible for some key deals over the past year.

Category Manager: Apparel, Accessories & Homewares

Cassie Allen
Current role: Licensing Manager (Clothing & Accessories), BBC Worldwide

Another strong field of contenders for this category, but it’s working with some of the biggest – and most recognisable - brands in the world which swung it for Allen. With a background at first Debenhams and then WBCP, Allen arrived at BBCW in 2006 - initially working on homewares – before being promoted in 2008 and moving on to the clothing and accessories category. Key deals over the past year include retro Doctor Who t-shirts (Bravado), Top Gear dress-up (Christy’s) and kids tees (TV Mania), Only Fools and Horses tees (Global Licensing) and securing agreements for the new 3rd & Bird clothing line. In addition, she also struck DTRs with M&S and Next for Charlie & Lola and In the Night Garden and is starting to build the programme for ZingZillas.
Special mentions: Helping to drive the Disney brand into the adult clothing market with the launch of collections including Disney Couture, as brought the firm’s director of apparel, accessories and footwear, Liam Gallagher, further into the spotlight. Jo Fricker, Hit’s UK licensing sales manager for soft goods, also comes highly recommended.

Category Manager: Interactive

Stephanie Freeman
Current role: Licensing & Peripherals Manager, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe

Video games is possibly the fastest growing sector for the licensing industry at the moment and Freeman, working at one of the console format holders, is right at the forefront. She single-handedly created a licensing programme for peripherals and console accessories across the PlayStation platforms in several key territories, while also managing agreements with third party publishers on their peripherals for the likes of Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Freeman also appointed Target Entertainment as SCEE’s merchandise licensing agent in April 2009 working across the PlayStation software IPs and, more recently, the PlayStation brand itself on consumer products. Prior to Sony, Freeman held roles at Hit, Jaguar Racing and WBCP.
Special mentions: As a relatively new category for licensing, licensors currently don’t tend to have dedicated managers for interactive. However, Nickelodeon’s UK licensing director John Vasta has struck  number of deals within the sector over the past 12 months and is a popular character within the industry.

Category Manager: Retail, Promotions & FMCG

Chris Taday
Most recent role: Dreamworks Marketing Manager, CPLG

Taday has been working in licensing and merchandising for over 15 years, including roles at film studios like 20th Century Fox and Columbia Tristar and with Hit Entertainment. Having earned a reputation for developing strong promotional programmes, he has worked with the likes of Kelloggs, Burger King and Nestle supporting key film releases from Cat in the Hat to Spider-man 2, while at Sony he worked with blue chip FMCG brands including United Biscuits and Agfa.
Just some of his promotions while at Hit included an FMCG deal with P&G to develop Bob Pampers ranges, plus numerous national newspaper promotions including a significant deal with the Daily Mirror for a toy and book offering for Thomas & Friends. He also struck deals across Europe with Kinder, Unilever, Goodies and a 12-week newspaper promotion with 24 Horas.
Taday is currently working on freelance promotional projects on newspaper promotions and brands.
Special mentions: WBCP’s retail business development manager, Simon Algie was responsible for some sterling work on Batman: The Brave and the Bold at retail level last year, while he was also involved with the successful Harry Potter Truck Tour at Sainsbury’s stores, getting the initial conversations off the ground with Harrods for the Wizard of Oz 70th anniversary celebrations and various activity around Scooby-Doo. Tracy Griffiths, senior director of UK licensing at Hit, also deserves a mention after numerous recommendations from high profile industry execs during the course of our research.

Licensing Managers

Ashley Holman
Current role: UK Licensing Manager, Nickelodeon

One of the licensing industry’s rising stars, Holman has been at NVCP for three years, Holman works across the paper products, stationery, health & beauty and food and promotions categories. Over the past year he has been responsible for a number of large scale promotions including last summer’s Spongebob Squarepants deal with Claire’s Accessories.

Rob Goodchild
Current role: Licensing Manager, Aardman Animations

Goodchild has been instrumental in developing Aardman’s strong partnership with Vivid to help establish Timmy Time as one of the biggest new pre-school properties in the market. On top of this, 2009 also saw him secure key deals with Blues Clothing, Worlds Apart and Character World, as well as relaunching Morph with Flair and Monster Factory and developing Wallace & Gromit into new categories.

Libby Grant
Current role: Brand Director, Fluid World

A director of ambitious start-up licensing and marketing agency Fluid, Grant has been widely praised for her work with Sanrio on the Hello Kitty property. 2009 was the 35th anniversary year for the brand and a special event at Sketch to launch its fashion clothing range pulled in a host of celebs and generated press coverage in OK, Grazia, Heat, Times Style and Dazed & Confused to name just a few. Grant has previously held roles at Ministry of Sound and DCP.

Gemma Woodward
Current role: Licensing Manager, Natural History Museum

With heritage licensing a huge growth area, NHM has made solid in-roads in the past 12 months, helped in no small part by Woodward’s deals. The former Sharpcards, ER and TLC exec helped the Museum find a suitable US agent, was responsible for its presence at Licensing International and also secured a number of new licensees across a variety of categories, resulting in NHM being shortlisted for Best Licensed Brand at the 2009 Licensing Awards.

Head of Design

John Davey
Current role: Design Director & Owner, John Davey Studio

The creative teams are often the unsung heroes of the licensing world, and John Davey has built up an excellent reputation since he founded the firm around ten years ago. His expertise lies in creating visual identities and style guides for some of the biggest brands around, having cut his teeth designing Superman t-shirts for a small design group in Fulham and then running Funhouse, which specialised in design and marketing for the kids and youth market and boasted clients including Disney, Thorpe Park and Raleigh Bikes among others.
Most recent projects for Davey have included developing the style guides for Bookaboo, Atari and Masterchef. His firm has also worked on several projects for BBC Worldwide (including Top Gear, Doctor Who, Torchwood and ZingZillas), plus Waybuloo for RDF and is now working with Rocket Licensing on St Trinians and the Hornby family of brands. Aardman, Chorion, Coolabi, Hasbro, Kinnerton and Global Licensing also sit on the client list.

Product Development & Approvals

Anthea Bull
Current role: Product Development Manager, E1 Entertainment

It seems the E1 team certainly made an impression in 2009 – Bull was overwhelmingly recommended for this role, with many licensees simply saying she is a delight to work with. She single-handedly manages the product development and approvals of over 70 licensees across all of E1’s properties, including Peppa Pig, Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom and Humf. Which, in her words, actually means she plays with toys all day.
Special mentions: Dawn Bushnell joined Ludorum last October having built up a solid list of contacts at Hit Entertainment, where she spent three years working across the firm’s pre-school properties as product development manager for hard and soft lines. She is now focusing on Ludorum’s Chuggington, dealing with a steadily growing portfolio of licensees.

Marketing

Jenny Smyth
Current role: Marketing Executive, Turner CN Enterprises

No licensor would be complete without someone whose role it is to make sure everyone else in the industry knows how brilliant it is. Key achievements for Smyth in 2009 included organising the rebrand of Turner CN Enterprises and managing the firm’s first showing at Brand Licensing Europe. No easy feat when you consider this included the stand build (along with the creative director) and the TV Lounge presentations.
The launch of the Ben 10 Alien Force toys in Hamleys saw Smyth organising in-store activity, branding the entire store, arranging competitions, costume visits and goodie bag giveways for the week-long promotion, while recent activity for Alien Swarm included a cast visit, postcard signings and in-store entertainment at Toys R Us in Brent Cross.
Smyth began her career in the licensing industry at Chorion in 2005, where she primarily worked on the Mr Men brand.

DO YOU AGREE?
Candidates were chosen on the strength of their overall experience, performance of their brands over the past 12 months and general likeability factor, with suggestions taken from various industry notables, including key licensees and retailers.
It’s all entirely subjective, of course, but if you feel that we haven’t made the best selections for our fantasy licensor, please do email Samantha.Loveday@intentmedia.co.uk with your suggestions.