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’re profiling one of these professionals in this ongoing series developed in partnership with MyMediaBox.

How did you get into licensing (or how did licensing find YOU😊)?
When I finished my studies, I had a part time job setting up accounts for a book and VCR publisher called Memphis Belle International. It was a startup, and we were focusing on licensed content, both kids and adults. After setting up some new accounts, one of the owners, Paul van den Heuvel, arranged a trip to London to look for new licenses and meet with a couple of licensors and invited me to go with him.  Seeing this world in action, I got the ‘licensing bug’ and have never lost it. I did move out of the licensing business for a couple of years to a publisher in the digital space overseeing its new business (CD-ROM at that time), however, I couldn’t shed the desire to work in licensing. So, I applied for a junior role within the WildBrain CPLG Benelux sales team and that is where my real licensing journey started.

What’s a “typical” day in your current position?
That is a tough question as one of the most exciting parts of working in licensing is that no day is the same. And, of course, during the past 18 months my days have changed drastically due to COVID. That said, we are starting to travel again and the first signs of embracing the ‘new normal’ are there.
A normal working day often starts with realizing where I am waking up! I am travelling extensively to make sure I continue to build personal connections with the staff in our various offices across the globe. Our Head Office is based in London, and I live in the Netherlands, so I travel regularly to the UK.
Starting at 08:30 or so, my aim is to have done some exercise before I begin my working day. Roughly 70% of my day is in meetings. Whether that is connecting with our licensors and licensees or internally with colleagues across the company. More increasingly these are also meetings with the WildBrain Executive team to ensure we synergize the combined strength of all areas of our business in WildBrain so we can service our partners even better. The remaining 30% is split between drafting presentations, doing some number crunching and often some firefighting. I aim to be done by 6pm so I can spend time with my family or when I am travelling with local colleagues.

What’s your biggest personal and professional accomplishment?
One of the things I am most proud of is the growth and development of WildBrain CPLG and being part of WildBrain. We went from being an ‘old-fashioned’ licensing agency and to transform into a full-service licensing agency across entertainment, lifestyle, and sport with brand building at the core of what we do. Throughout that process we also grew our global footprint and I was actively involved in opening offices in the Nordics, CEE and Russia, and in Greece, Turkey, MENA, India, and the US. Most recently we are refocusing on growing the US operations and opening our Indian office. Expansion comes with a lot of challenges, but also brings a lot of energy and opportunity which I thrive on.

What are the most significant trends or changes that you’ve seen in the business in recent years?
Covid of course has had the most impact most in the last 18 months. Working remotely, dealing with the struggles at retail, increased pricing, fatigue of online meetings. It now is part of our day-to-day, and we are trying to address these topics in different ways to ensure a healthy work/life balance and that our business is flexible enough to adapt to the ever-changing landscape.  Besides COVID, the changes have been vast. To name the two key ones: brand building and synergy. Starting off with brand building. As mentioned before, as an agency we believe the days of just pushing through contracts are gone. Nowadays you need to have a holistic brand strategy and an agency is a big part of writing and executing these strategies. Whether it’s retail developments, location-based entertainment (LBE), halo collaborations and even marketing executions, we need to be active in all of them.
The second point, synergizing, is all encompassing. This is related to geography, so having a bigger footprint that allows us to think global but act local. Being able to manage the roll out of an IP across the world or region, having all territories on the same hymn sheet, and thereby being more in control of the longevity of a consumer products program is vital for our business. The second part of synergy is working closely with the different business areas across WildBrain to expand our offering and deepen our relationship with our licensors and licensees. So, whether that is working with our colleagues at WildBrain Spark, our AVOD network and digital studios to understand and analyze data and insights from content on YouTube for example or talking to our colleagues from WildBrain Studios about the production of content, we all have the same agenda, which is supercharging IP 360-degrees from content creation to consumer products.

What keeps you up at night? What’s your biggest challenge these days?
The rapid change of our industry. So much has changed and will continue to do so in the near future. The way content is consumed is changing rapidly. With that, the speed to market is quicker and longevity of a brand is less secure. You need to be able to adapt rapidly to these changes which isn’t always easy. Our capabilities and understanding across the whole of WildBrain gives us a great understanding of how to manage these changes and where to focus. The collective data we can analyse is beneficial for us as a consumer products business and this assists not only in the growth of our own brands but our third-party representation as well.

In your opinion, what is the top skill every licensing executive should have in order to succeed?
Listening. Whether that is to clients’ needs or what our talent needs. Often executives have full schedules and agendas rule. But in the end people are the most important part of success. Happy people result in a happy business. It isn’t all related to the financials, and especially in times where meeting face to face is a struggle this becomes even more important. I always try to make sure I plan for informal catch ups. This can be a lunch, a drink or even just five minutes at the coffee machine. And the great thing is that I get a lot of energy as well from doing that. Understanding the issues and wins at work, but also hearing what their passions are and what their weekend was like. Don’t get me wrong, I still need to be better at it, because diaries fill up so easily.

What is the best piece of advice you ever received? OR What is your favorite quote?
It is a Dutch saying ‘Wie goed doet, goed ontmoet’. Freely translated it is ‘Who does the right thing will be met with the right thing’. So doing the right thing should be done not to get a return instantly or keep score but knowing that you’ve done the right thing and in the longer term you will get the energy you put in back. It is always easy to cut corners and go for the short-term gain, but this will catch up with you. Putting in the hours now will put you in a better place and that will be rewarding in so many ways, and that doesn’t just apply to your professional life!

What is your favorite licensing deal of all time? (doesn’t have to be one that was signed by you)
My favourite, personal to me, is one of the first loyalty deals I closed in the Benelux. We launched a Nickelodeon collectable marble promotion with a grocer. It featured 30 different collectable marbles across all Nickelodeon IP with the promotion heavily marketed nationwide. This was the very first time we did this type of activation. Within four weeks of launch, 30 million marbles (with a population of 15 million) were collected and playing with marbles became a hot craze. The brand awareness went through the roof and there was instant satisfaction. Besides the financial size of the deal, this was the first time I saw the true power of licensing in all its glory.

If you weren’t in licensing, what would you be doing now?
I would probably do something in sports. Not as an athlete! I have always been a huge Formula 1 fan, so that would probably be my focus.

THE 2021 PEOPLE PROFILE SERIES IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY MYMEDIABOX

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