Global children’s content and brands company, DHX Media has appointed Lara Ilie as the vice president of rights strategy. In this new role, Ilie will report to chief commercial officer Anne Loi and will develop to help implement integrated strategies to monetise the company’s portfolio of intellectual property rights across business units and territories.
Working with the senior management team, Ilie will be responsible for formulating strategies to keep DHX Media at the forefront of market trends and grow revenue from the company’s leading portfolio of kids and family brands. She will also will manage sales of DHX Media’s content library in Canada, Italy, Spain and Australia.
DHX Media president Josh Scherba said, “We are committed to driving increased growth from our world-leading portfolio of kids’ and family brands. Lara has a talent for building strong client relationships and has consistently demonstrated a keen understanding of the international market for children’s content and brands. With her in-depth knowledge of DHX Media’s rights business, Lara is the ideal person to help us further identify and advance integrated strategies to propel our rights business on the next phase of growth.”
Based in DHX Media’s Toronto offices, Ilie has worked for DHX Media since 2007 and was previously senior director of sales, responsible for Iberia, Italy, Benelux, Nordics, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Prior to DHX Media, she worked in sales and acquisitions for Romanian Television and Pro TV.
“I look forward to working with the management team to develop the best integrated strategies for driving growth from our rights portfolio, taking advantage of opportunities across our business units to maximize international sales for our brands,” Ilie commented.
Besides Ilie, DHX Media has also brought in Rachel Taylor to the position of commercial director of its wholly owned subsidiary, WildBrain. Reporting to WildBrain managing director Jon Gisby, Taylor will be responsible for expanding WildBrain’s commercial partnership business with third-party brands.
Taylor leads WildBrain’s sales and operations teams, as well as client management. Based in London, she brings to WildBrain, extensive experience in content distribution and monetisation, coupled with a background in toys.
“The third-party kids’ brands that we manage are an important pillar of the WildBrain business. Rachel possesses a deep appreciation of the importance of commercial partnerships, built over a decade of experience working in international media and consumer products. We welcome her to the WildBrain team and look forward to working with her to continue building our network of clients and developing these relationships,” added Gisby.
During her career, Taylor has held senior business and commercial roles at Sony Pictures Entertainment where she was the director of commercial partnerships for EMEA and director of global commercial innovation and strategy, and at Twentieth Century Fox.
“WildBrain is widely recognized as a leader in the kids’ space on YouTube and I look forward to working with Jon and his team to help grow the business further,” noted Taylor.
Prior to joining WildBrain, she was the international sales director for Australian toy company, Funtastic and was tasked with re-launching the business’ own IP brands and growing its international distribution footprint.
