The committee is made up of three young professionals, Tasmyn Knight, Alexandra Salisbury and Louisa Skevington and will be chaired by Ryan Beaird of LIMA.

The aim of the committee is to help grow LIMA’s young professionals educational output, in addition to building up the community and bringing together our junior licensing people through events specially curated for their needs.

Ryan Beaird – Marketing and Operations Manager – LIMA UK

The Young Professionals Network in its early days was just a small gathering for social drinks in London – I’m now proud to see it growing each year with more content offered that is applicable to the future of our industry over and above social occasions throughout the year.

To have the LIMA Rising Star award now incorporated in the Licensing Awards was a major step forward and I feel it is an award for which every young professional aspires to be nominated for and, ultimately win.

With this new LIMA Young Professionals Committee in place I am already starting to see more ideas coming into LIMA and more importantly ideas from the young professionals themselves.

I’m very excited to start planning for our content for 2019 with the committee and adding more to our program for the future of our industry.

Louisa Skevington – Licensing Coordinator – Rocket Licensing

As a relative newcomer in this dynamic industry, I have personally benefitted a huge amount from the opportunities offered to me by LIMA Young Professionals Network. The LIMA YPN events are a fantastic means of making useful and lasting industry connections and gaining insights into different areas of licensing and brand building from some real experts, while also having a lot of fun!

Now, as part of the YPN committee, I am excited to help build this network of ambitious and influential young executives and broaden the reach of events to appeal to, and benefit, licensees, licensors, agents and retailers alike. As a committee, we all come from different backgrounds within the industry, making it a great platform to share ideas and a valuable vehicle through which we, as young professionals, can support our peers in a relevant and expansive way.

Tasmyn Knight – Licensing Associate – Turner

In the relatively short four years I have been in the Industry, I feel like I have hugely developed from the intern who managed Happy Meal toys licensing to someone who lives and breathes entertainment brands.

With such a strong pool of young executives in the industry currently, the Young Professionals is a fantastic medium to learn the basics of the industry, apply this knowledge to real life situations and network with other executives (so much of this industry is about connections!).

I’m aiming to organise events that are relevant to the current environment, and that can be utilised throughout people’s careers to come via educational and social opportunities. New blood in this industry is incredibly valuable so the opportunity to nurture this through the young professionals is fantastic.

Alexandra Salisbury – Retail Licensing Manager – Nickelodeon UK CP

My hope for the YPN Committee is that we inspire and engage our peers through our events and help other young professionals like us to create meaningful connections that will serve them throughout their career. It’s fantastic to be able to play my part in that and for the committee to have a greater voice in what is such a sociable and supportive industry – I absolutely love it!

As we set our objectives for the year, our ambition is to broaden the appeal of the network and to ensure that we are speaking to absolutely everyone – from licensors to licensees to retailers – regardless of location so come talk to us, tell us what kind of events you’d like to see and most importantly, get involved!