Los Angeles-based animation and gaming studio Saffronic has appointed Skyler Mattson as Chief Executive Officer.
Mattson is the former president of global creative and design agency WongDoody, an Infosys company. As CEO of Saffronic, she will be responsible for solidifying the company’s vision and offerings to drive growth across the media, entertainment, video games, advertising and creative sector worldwide. With a background in creative, media strategy, branding, interactive, UX/UI and digital product services, Mattson will shape the organisational structure of the company to align with growth and be a champion for the “by artists for artists” culture of Saffronic.
Saffronic was founded in 2022 by Tim Sarnoff, former Technicolor deputy CEO-president production services & global head of strategy and development at Technicolor, and Vince Pizzica, former Technicolor CTO and chief strategist. In June 2022, Saffronic set up a production facility in the Indian city of Chennai.
“Saffronic is a rapidly growing new studio, which has quickly attracted a global community of extraordinarily talented filmmakers, VFX artists, and creative technologists. With the worldwide demand for these services continuing to expand across almost every sector of business, we have the capability and capacity to produce compelling stories, inspiring characters and captivating worlds that will bring every narrative to life. I look forward to collaborating with the Saffronic teams in the US and India to create a next-level creative studio,” said Mattson.
During Mattson’s tenure at WongDoody, known for advertising, experience design, branding and emergent tech, she rose quickly through the ranks, serving as director of client partnerships, managing director and ultimately as the company’s president. She led the growth and transformation of the company from 80 people in North America to over 2,000 talented creatives across the globe, delivering year-on-year growth. Under her leadership, WongDoody was awarded over 300 global awards for creative marketing campaigns for clients in the CPG, healthcare, technology and entertainment industries, and was consistently honoured as being a “Best Place to Work.”
Mattson has led several female empowerment initiatives and is the co-founder of The Motherboard, a global community of thousands of moms who share insights to help Fortune 500 companies innovate. The Motherboard won a Fast Company World Changing Idea award. For the past three years she has been the producer and host of View from the C-Suite, a bi-monthly webinar featuring women in the C-Suite. Mattson has been a delegate to the World Economic Forum and served as a board member for the Infosys Foundation USA.
“Skyler is a progressive and conscientious leader who will lead the team from the ground up. We are thrilled to have an executive with her level of expertise and innovative capabilities to help drive Saffronic‘s global growth,” commented Saffronic board member Dilip Keshu.
With Mattson’s addition, Saffronic‘s management now boasts industry veterans Kumar Chandrasekaran and Prabhakar Sambandan, each with over 25 years of industry experience with major entertainment companies and brands. They serve as joint studio directors of the India branch. Sally Toms, an agency veteran, runs operations and more recently Kristy Scanlan joined to spearhead sales.
Current Saffronic clients include Dreamworks Animation (Gabby’s Dollhouse, Dragons: The Nine Realms, Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous), WildBrain and Trioscope.