The global licensing community is powered by an incredible group of professionals whose diverse backgrounds and creative energy drive innovation and excellence. Each week we profile one of these professionals in this ongoing series.

How did you get into licensing (or how did licensing find you)?
It certainly found me! I come from a co-viewing family. Whether we were watching Lost, Harry Potter, or Star Wars, I always wanted to be a part of creating these shared moments. I was lucky enough to join Hasbro’s marketing team out of school, where I worked on multi-gen brands like Transformers, Power Rangers, and My Little Pony. There, I learned how licensing programs don’t just monetize but help fuel consistent love and awareness, especially in windows between entertainment drops.

A few years later, I’m now at King Features—a unit of Hearst—working on heritage IPs like Popeye, Moomin, Flash Gordon, and more. Today, when a kid gifts a pair of Hush Puppies x Popeye socks to his grandpa, or two siblings are fighting over the latest Mad Cave x Flash Gordon comic book, I know I’m leaving my small mark on these cherished characters and the families that love them.

What’s a “typical” day in your current position?
No day is typical, and I love that. One day I might be on calls pitching/onboarding partners, the next deep in comic lore trying to understand the terrain of a planet that Flash Gordon visited in the ‘70s. I could be investigating generative AI applications for our business or executing an on-the-ground marketing activation to bolster affinity. Our team is small but mighty, so we really get our hands in everything. My one constant is the afternoon coffee run with my team—shout out to Kelsey Sullivan and Sunjana Varma for keeping me sane at 2pm!

What’s your biggest personal or professional accomplishment?
Any time that I can bring fun to the fans, that’s when I feel the most fulfilled. Whether launching a custom My Little Pony Roblox experience or developing a publishing program around Flash Gordon that feels fresh but still resonates with life-long fans, I’m most proud of the times when I’ve opened a little portal to these worlds that our characters call home.

What are the most significant trends or changes that you’ve seen in the business in recent years?
For licensing, and for marketing especially, consumer sentiment seems to be favoring reactive vs proactive approaches, particularly on TikTok. From a corporate perspective, this is a challenge for marketers, as it’s hard for us to plan for it. While there are absolutely exceptions, the easiest way to shout about our brand activity is not a highly crafted custom campaign but rather carving out space in a relevant, trending moment. It’s agile, nimble, and often hard to sell-in, but it presents an opportunity to make a bigger impact (often at a lower investment).

What keeps you up at night? What’s your biggest challenge these days?
The character franchise space is crowded and competitive. Our brands need constant reinvention to keep consumers engaged, while staying true to “the core and the lore” that brought them our way in the first place.

In your opinion, what is the top skill every licensing executive should have in order to succeed?
Be a fan. And be chronically online.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received, or what’s your favorite quote?
I’m so torn between an Uncle Iroh and a Gandalf quote that I’ll just defer to what my brother used to tell me every morning when I got out of the car: “Be confident.”

What is your favorite licensing deal of all time? (It doesn’t have to be one that was signed by you.)
Tooth Tunes, specifically Hannah Montana’s Pumpin’ Up the Party brush. If those aren’t on display in a museum yet, they should be.

If you weren’t in licensing, what would you be doing now?
Writing sci-fi fantasy books with my brothers—or adapting them for the screen.

The last licensed product I bought was…
A Dark Horse Avatar the Last Airbender graphic novel.