Speak­ers

Doc­tor of Law (France), Mas­ter of Laws (Cana­da), Offi­cer of the Ordre des Arts et des Let­tres. From 1989 until 1997, Pres­i­dent of Frances lead­ing ani­ma­tion stu­dio, France Ani­ma­tion. From 1997 to 2009, Pres­i­dent and founder of Alphan­im. Since 2010, he has been an invest­ment part­ner at CD Pro­duc­tion. Chris­t­ian Davin is the Chair­man of CARTOON.

PAN­EL • Some call it a dark art, oper­at­ed by an elu­sive group of finan­cial wiz­ards! But Car­toon Busi­ness looks to dis­pel the mys­tique behind the world of Pri­vate Equity.

Co-founder of Iris Cap­i­tal, one of the old­est VCs in Europe, based in France and Ger­many. Iris Cap­i­tal, found­ed in 1986, was first a TMT fund. Then it became a dig­i­tal fund.

John Lomas-Bul­li­vant is the founder of Kick­back Media, a chil­dren’s and YA sto­ry­world pro­duc­er. Kick­back Media devel­ops high con­cept, genre based sto­ry­worlds for ani­ma­tion, live action and pub­lish­ing. Kick­backs first sto­ry­world, the ​“21% Mon­ster” tril­o­gy, writ­ten by PJ Can­ning, was pub­lished in July 2022.

Emmanuèle grew up in Boston (USA) and grad­u­at­ed her PhD at La Sor­bonne (Paris) in inter­na­tion­al lit­er­a­ture. Her career in ani­ma­tion start­ed as the Head of Europe for the Cana­di­an pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny Nel­vana Europe, in charge of co-pro­duc­tions & inter­na­tion­al sales where she gained her first Emmy Award. After 2 years as Head of Cre­ative Devel­op­ment at Mil­lim­ages, she joined forces with Jean-Bap­tiste Wery in 2010 to cre­ate Dan­de­looo, in order to devel­op, pro­duce and dis­trib­ute world­wide ambi­tious ani­ma­tion, most­ly based on children’s book and/​or unique tal­ent. She co-cre­at­ed the hybrid series ​“The Tree­house Sto­ries” (4 sea­sons for CANAL+ and 2nd Emmy Award) and helped co-pro­duce more unique pro­grams, along with book-based ani­mat­ed jew­els ​“Bil­ly the Cow­boy Ham­ster” cur­rent­ly a hit on France Télévi­sions and around the world). She is cur­rent­ly devel­op­ing ​“My Great Great Great Fam­i­ly”, a com­e­dy series which was pre­sent­ed at Car­toon Forum 2024. Her ani­ma­tion stu­dio Ooolala opened in order to pro­duce at home, in the beau­ti­ful Car­toucherie, in Valence. Ear­ly 2024, Dan­de­looo start­ed 2 new depart­ments (always ani­ma­tion!): a cin­e­ma devel­op­ment, pro­duc­tion & inter­na­tion­al sales and a short film divi­sion (pro­duc­tion). Her first children’s book was pub­lished ear­ly Novem­ber. Her pas­sion for children’s books and ani­ma­tion is now ful­filled and her true pride is to work with the best team in the world. 

PAN­EL • It’s a tough mar­ket for those work­ing in dis­tri­b­u­tion and financ­ing IP’s. So how are they cop­ing in the present down­turn? What changes are they mak­ing to the way they work? And what advice can they give to hard-pressed producers?

An inter­na­tion­al media pro­fes­sion­al with over 25 years expe­ri­ence as Senior Vice Pres­i­dent, Dis­tri­b­u­tion & Acqui­si­tions, Alix Wise­man is respon­si­ble for head­ing up 9 Sto­ry’s dis­tri­b­u­tion oper­a­tions and sourc­ing 3rd par­ty con­tent for world­wide exploita­tion. Her remit includes bro­ker­ing inter­na­tion­al co-pro­duc­tion part­ner­ships, secur­ing financ­ing for 9 Sto­ry’s new IPs and work­ing close­ly with inter­nal cre­ative affairs teams to shape them for the glob­al market. 

PAN­EL • Some call it a dark art, oper­at­ed by an elu­sive group of finan­cial wiz­ards! But Car­toon Busi­ness looks to dis­pel the mys­tique behind the world of Pri­vate Equity.

Hasham spe­cialis­es in help­ing own­er man­agers of busi­ness­es in the Pro­duc­tion / Dis­tri­b­u­tion space imple­ment their growth strate­gies and max­imise val­ue upon sale. Hasham brings a wealth of inter­na­tion­al media expe­ri­ence hav­ing advised on deals in Pro­duc­tion and Dis­tri­b­u­tion, Dig­i­tal Media and IP busi­ness­es in the UK, Con­ti­nen­tal Europe and North Amer­i­ca – includ­ing advis­ing on the sale of the intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty rights to the icon­ic glob­al prop­er­ty, Padding­ton Bear to Studiocanal.

PAN­EL • Car­toon Busi­ness puts A.I. under the spot­light in a provoca­tive pan­el session!

Bel­gian born ani­ma­tion artist who grad­u­at­ed from RITCS in 2019, and has since then rolled into var­i­ous lay­out, back­ground, sto­ry and direct­ing roles for projects like ​“Patser”, ​“Titi­na”, ​“Liv­ing with Dad”, ​“Apol­lo 10 1/2”, ​“Cuquin” and ​“Goat Girl”.

KEYNOTE • The BBC is at the fore­front today of enter­tain­ing their wide-rang­ing audi­ences, wher­ev­er they might be, not just on TV but on the many avail­able dig­i­tal plat­forms. Car­toon Busi­ness learns it’s an impor­tant busi­ness strat­e­gy, espe­cial­ly with Roblox.

Lydia is a senior strate­gic dig­i­tal leader with over 15 years expe­ri­ence in devel­op­ing inter­ac­tive and video con­tent to engage kids and young audi­ences. She is cur­rent­ly Head of Dig­i­tal Media, Plat­forms and Plan­ning at BBC Children’s and Edu­ca­tion where she leads the strat­e­gy and deliv­ery of a dig­i­tal port­fo­lio includ­ing games, apps, web­sites, social and YouTube for brands includ­ing CBee­bies and CBBC.

PAN­EL • Car­toon Busi­ness talks busi­ness accel­er­a­tors and how they can help kick start your indus­try ambi­tions, across media and plat­forms, devel­op your IP slate, hone your man­age­ment skills and facil­i­tate the growth of your company.

Helene is French and Amer­i­can. She has a back­ground in com­mu­ni­ca­tions and have been work­ing at Bpifrance, the French Pub­lic invest­ment bank for 10 years, help­ing entre­pre­neurs in their busi­ness devel­op­ment through the right con­nex­ions and one of a kind accel­er­a­tor programs.

PAN­EL • Car­toon Busi­ness puts A.I. under the spot­light in a provoca­tive pan­el session!

Cathal co-found­ed Brown Bag Films in 1994 and as its man­ag­ing direc­tor has seen it grow to become a world -ead­ing pro­duc­er of ani­mat­ed chil­dren’s pro­grammes. In 2002, Cathal direct­ed the short film ​“Give Up Yer Aul Sins” which was nom­i­nat­ed for an Acad­e­my Award and, in 2010, Brown Bag Films were nom­i­nat­ed for a sec­ond Acad­e­my Award with the short film ​“Granny O’Grimm”. In 2015, Brown Bag Films was acquired by 9Story Media Group and Cathal became the COO respon­si­ble for all ani­ma­tion pro­duc­tion and tech­nol­o­gy across the group. Employ­ing over 1,100 tal­ent­ed staff across stu­dios in Dublin, Toron­to and Bali. Brown Bag Films mis­sion is to pro­duce the best qual­i­ty ani­ma­tion for chil­dren on tele­vi­sion. In 2024, 9Story Media Group was acquired by the pub­lish­ing com­pa­ny Scholastic.

Nico writes dai­ly exclu­sive news, fea­tures and per­spec­tive pieces for C21Media, the UK-based provider of break­ing news and indus­try analy­sis to the inter­na­tion­al enter­tain­ment com­mu­ni­ty. Pri­or to becom­ing edi­tor of Channel21 Inter­na­tion­al mag­a­zine in 2021 he was edi­tor of C21Kids mag­a­zine for five years. He joined C21Media in 2012 fol­low­ing stints writ­ing for the BBC online and music mag­a­zine Clash. As well as con­tribut­ing to the C21Podcast, Nico mod­er­ates and pro­duces ses­sions as part of C21Media’s award-win­ning annu­al con­fer­ence Con­tent Lon­don and has spo­ken at events around the world includ­ing Con­tent Amer­i­c­as, MipTV, Series­Fest and Series Mania. He has also devel­oped and pro­duced a non-TX com­e­dy pilot with Wild­seed Stu­dios in the UK and writes for award-win­ning Leeds Unit­ed fanzine The Square Ball. 

PAN­EL • It’s a tough mar­ket for those work­ing in dis­tri­b­u­tion and financ­ing IP’s. So how are they cop­ing in the present down­turn? What changes are they mak­ing to the way they work? And what advice can they give to hard-pressed producers?

Edward is CEO of CAKE, an inde­pen­dent enter­tain­ment com­pa­ny spe­cial­is­ing in the pro­duc­tion, dis­tri­b­u­tion, devel­op­ment, financ­ing and brand devel­op­ment of kids and fam­i­ly prop­er­ties. With 25 years of expe­ri­ence, Edward has worked for lead­ing com­pa­nies includ­ing Gau­mont and Xil­am. Edward is Exec Pro­duc­er on B“ottersnikes & Gum­bles”, ​“Mush-Mush & The Mush­ables”, ​“Pablo”, ​“Angry Birds: Sum­mer Mad­ness”, ​“Supa Team 4” and ​“Nikhil & Jay”. Edward is a Board Mem­ber of Ani­ma­tion UK and a mem­ber of the Tele­vi­sion Academy. 

PAN­EL • Car­toon Busi­ness talks busi­ness accel­er­a­tors and how they can help kick start your indus­try ambi­tions, across media and plat­forms, devel­op your IP slate, hone your man­age­ment skills and facil­i­tate the growth of your company.

After first expe­ri­ences in the Inter­na­tion­al sales depart­ments of well known pro­duc­tions com­pa­nies (Stu­dio­canal, SND) and a year at the French Min­istry of Cul­ture, Lucas Perin joined the CNC (French Nation­al Cen­ter of Cin­e­ma and Mov­ing Image) in 2021 where he is now work­ing as Audio­vi­su­al Advisor.

PAN­EL • Car­toon Busi­ness talks busi­ness accel­er­a­tors and how they can help kick start your indus­try ambi­tions, across media and plat­forms, devel­op your IP slate, hone your man­age­ment skills and facil­i­tate the growth of your company.

Head of IP Devel­op­ment & Devel­op­er Rela­tions at Dot Play, Eliza is the Cre­ator of Stu­dio Killers (12 bil­lion views on Tik­Tok) and the CEO of Vis­i­ble Realms, an enter­tain­ment com­pa­ny cre­at­ing 360° IP across video games and ani­mat­ed content.

KEYNOTE • Car­toon Busi­ness explores how best to work with YouTube, often described as one of the planet’s most influ­en­tial of media businesses.

Ylka Tapia is a Con­tent Part­ner­ship Man­ag­er and Exec­u­tive Pro­duc­er at El Reino Infan­til, a glob­al leader in fam­i­ly-ori­ent­ed enter­tain­ment. In this role, Ylka over­sees acqui­si­tions, sales and co-pro­duc­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties, lever­ag­ing her exten­sive expe­ri­ence in 2D/3D ani­ma­tion. Reg­u­lar­ly attend­ing inter­na­tion­al mar­kets and fes­ti­vals, she sources top-tier ani­mat­ed con­tent, offers cat­a­logues to SVoD/​AVoD plat­forms & lin­ear TVs and forges col­lab­o­ra­tions with indus­try part­ners across Amer­i­can, Asian-Pacif­ic and Euro­pean mar­kets. Ylka­’s career began as a jour­nal­ist and TV pro­duc­er, where she built a strong foun­da­tion in media and com­mu­ni­ca­tion before tran­si­tion­ing into ani­ma­tion and con­tent part­ner­ships. As an Exec­u­tive Pro­duc­er, she has suc­cess­ful­ly led 2D/3D ani­ma­tion projects, col­lab­o­rat­ing with ani­ma­tion stu­dios, dis­trib­u­tors, broad­cast­ers, licen­sors, pub­lish­ers, writers/​scriptwriters and voice-over artists glob­al­ly. In addi­tion to her pro­fes­sion­al roles, Ylka serves on the man­age­ment board of MIA Mujeres en la Indus­tria de la Ani­mación, con­tribut­ing to finan­cial man­age­ment and advo­cat­ing for women in the ani­ma­tion indus­try. Out­side of work, Ylka enjoys trav­el­ing, sports and the arts, includ­ing paint­ing with acrylics and writ­ing nar­ra­tives for young adults. A pas­sion for video games and a love for nature fur­ther enrich her cre­ative and per­son­al life.

PAN­EL • It’s a tough mar­ket for those work­ing in dis­tri­b­u­tion and financ­ing IP’s. So how are they cop­ing in the present down­turn? What changes are they mak­ing to the way they work? And what advice can they give to hard-pressed producers?

Julia began her career in adver­tis­ing at Grey World­wide and, lat­er, sup­port­ed the mar­ket­ing team at Bue­na Vista Inter­na­tion­al on such releas­es as ​“Tarzan” and ​“Run­away Bride”. After grad­u­at­ing from the pro­duc­tion and media busi­ness depart­ment at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Tele­vi­sion and Film (HFF) in Munich, she took her first steps in the film indus­try in Los Ange­les by work­ing for Wolf­gang Petersen’s Radi­ant Pro­duc­tions in 2001 before mov­ing to the Munich-based pro­duc­tion enti­ty Screen­craft Enter­tain­ment. In 2008, Julia expand­ed the scope of her glob­al expe­ri­ence and net­work by focus­ing on inter­na­tion­al sales when she was appoint­ed as Sales Man­ag­er at Telepool/​Global Screen. She was lat­er pro­mot­ed there to the senior role of Head of Acqui­si­tions, Devel­op­ment and Sales for both fea­ture films and TV series. End of 2023, Julia start­ed her own sales and co-pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny togeth­er with her long-stand­ing col­league Alice von Einem by join­ing forces with Beta Film in Munich, to cre­ate Epsilon Film. Togeth­er, they will be aim­ing to han­dle com­mer­cial fea­ture films of all gen­res, with a par­tic­u­lar sweet spot for fam­i­ly entertainment.

PAN­EL • Car­toon Busi­ness puts A.I. under the spot­light in a provoca­tive pan­el session!

Char­lie Fink is a con­sul­tant, colum­nist, author and adjunct, cov­er­ing AI, XR and the Meta­verse for Forbes. He is the author of the crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed AR-enabled books ​“Char­lie Fink’s Meta­verse” (2017) and ​“Con­ver­gence, How The World Will Be Paint­ed With Data” (2019). Fink teach­es at Chap­man Uni­ver­si­ty in Orange (Cal­i­for­nia) and ASU’s LA grad­u­ate pro­gram in emerg­ing media.

PAN­EL • At this cru­cial junc­ture in the his­to­ry of pub­lic ser­vice tele­vi­sion, Car­toon Busi­ness asks: How can lin­ear broad­cast­ers weath­er the storm in this change­able and shrink­ing marketplace?

Né en 1968, Pierre Sir­a­cusa intè­gre le ser­vice pub­lic en 1993 au sein de l’unité fic­tion de France 2 puis occupe très rapi­de­ment le poste de con­seiller de pro­grammes adjoint pour la même unité. En 1996, il rejoint l’unité jeunesse de la même chaîne en tant que con­seiller de pro­grammes avant de rejoin­dre celle de France 3 en 1998. En octo­bre 2008, Pierre Sir­a­cusa est nom­mé respon­s­able du pôle ani­ma­tion 6-12 ans et famille au sein de la direc­tion de la jeunesse com­mune de groupe France Télévisions

PAN­EL • At this cru­cial junc­ture in the his­to­ry of pub­lic ser­vice tele­vi­sion, Car­toon Busi­ness asks: How can lin­ear broad­cast­ers weath­er the storm in this change­able and shrink­ing marketplace?

Head of Fam­i­ly and Fic­tion, hr/​ARD. Patri­cia Vas­apol­lo start­ed work­ing for TV at the cul­tur­al depart­ment. In 2003 she moved to the chil­dren and fam­i­ly depart­ment, where she was respon­si­ble for the pro­duc­tion of fea­ture films, ani­ma­tion and doc­u­men­taries about chil­dren from all around the world. She co-pro­duces and acquires car­toon series, such as Geron­i­mo Stil­ton, Max and Mae­stro, Tom Sawyer and Leo da Vin­ci, also screens the mar­ket in the field of inter­na­tion­al licens­ing and co-pro­duc­tions for ARD and KIKA. Since 2019 she became Head of Fam­i­ly and Fic­tion, which also inte­grates TV adult dramas.

PAN­EL • Some call it a dark art, oper­at­ed by an elu­sive group of finan­cial wiz­ards! But Car­toon Busi­ness looks to dis­pel the mys­tique behind the world of Pri­vate Equity.

Expe­ri­enced investor, entre­pre­neur, exec­u­tive and con­sul­tant in the media and enter­tain­ment indus­try and ex-Apple. Timo Argillan­der has over 30 years of dig­i­tal media busi­ness experience.

CASE STUDY • Build­ing an ani­ma­tion busi­ness in the CEE can be chal­leng­ing. With few State sub­si­dies and lit­tle sup­port. But Car­toon Busi­ness talks to one entre­pre­neur­ial Founder, Mar­tin Juza from Kru­tart in the Czech Repub­lic, who is lead­ing the way with a focused busi­ness strat­e­gy, oth­ers in the region and the rest of Europe could learn from.

Mar­tin Jůza (1986) co-found­ed the cre­ative stu­dio Kru­tart in 2014, where he works as CEO and pro­duc­er. He uses his entre­pre­neur­ial approach to trans­form the rigid busi­ness mod­els of the media indus­try into a suc­cess­ful glob­al busi­ness. As a pro­duc­er at Kru­tart, Mar­tin Jůza focus­es on cre­at­ing new IPs for chil­dren and their cre­ative exploita­tion. In 2020, Kru­tart brought the ani­mat­ed series ​“Kos­mix” (26x5’) to the screens of Czech Tele­vi­sion, which is now dis­trib­uted world­wide by the French sales agent Dan­de­looo. In 2022, Kos­mix received a sec­ond sea­son and a fea­ture film ​“Kos­mix: Secret Mis­sion” (CZ-IT-SK) is sched­uled to pre­miere world­wide in 2027. Anoth­er IP in devel­op­ment at Kru­tart is a 26x7’ TV series for chil­dren (5-7 years), ​“Napville”, with an esti­mat­ed pre­miere in 2028. In 2022, the CG ani­mat­ed short film ​“3-2-1 Start!” for full­dome plan­e­tar­i­ums began its suc­cess­ful world­wide dis­tri­b­u­tion. It is now pro­grammed in 26 coun­tries on five con­ti­nents around the world. Kru­tart now has its own in-house sales depart­ment for immer­sive media projects and an edi­to­r­i­al line with a planned release of one film per year. Mar­tin Jůza has par­tic­i­pat­ed in many inter­na­tion­al work­shops and pitch­ing forums such as Berli­nale Tal­ents, Dok.Incubator, MAIA, EPI and IDFA Acad­e­my. He is also one of the authors and hosts of the Pitch​.cz pod­cast, which con­nects Czech film professionals.

PAN­EL • Car­toon Busi­ness talks busi­ness accel­er­a­tors and how they can help kick start your indus­try ambi­tions, across media and plat­forms, devel­op your IP slate, hone your man­age­ment skills and facil­i­tate the growth of your company.

Katrin is the co-founder and cre­ative direc­tor of Mash&Co, an Ital­ian-French trans­me­dia com­pa­ny that devel­ops orig­i­nal edu­tain­ment IPs focused on nur­tur­ing chil­dren’s emo­tion­al intel­li­gence and soft skills. She over­sees the Mash&Co brand, writ­ing and direct­ing the com­pa­ny’s dig­i­tal con­tent and ensur­ing it is tai­lored to lin­ear and inter­ac­tive mul­ti­me­dia plat­forms and aligns with her organ­i­sa­tion’s core val­ues. Katrin has been recog­nised with the ​‘Women Val­ue Com­pa­ny’ award by Inte­sa San Pao­lo, list­ed as an ​‘Unstop­pable Woman’ by Start­up Italia and select­ed for the pres­ti­gious French entre­pre­neur­ship pro­gram ​‘Orange Femmes Entre­pre­neuses 2024’. She is also a lec­tur­er in video game pro­duc­tion and a men­tor for Women in Games France and Founders Boost Italy, the largest US-based pre-accel­er­a­tion program.

PAN­EL • Beyond Doom and Gloom, why there’s opti­mism for a brighter future! Car­toon Busi­ness exam­ines the state of the ani­ma­tion indus­try today and how, out of adver­si­ty, come new oppor­tu­ni­ties and new ways of working.

With over 25 years expe­ri­ence in kids and fam­i­ly brands, Julien Bor­de is Pres­i­dent of Medi­awan Kids & Fam­i­ly. Until 2018, he was Head of Kids and Gen­er­al Enter­tain­ment Chan­nels at Warn­er­Me­dia for France, French-speak­ing ter­ri­to­ries and Africa. Between 2005 and 2015, he cre­at­ed France Télévi­sions Kids depart­ment and estab­lished it as the leader of the Euro­pean ani­ma­tion indus­try. He was appoint­ed Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of France 3 in 2012, then Head of Dig­i­tal Pro­gram­ming with respon­si­bil­i­ty for AVoD/​TVoD/​SVoD. He start­ed his career at Dis­ney in 1997, where he remained until 2005, as Deputy Direc­tor then Exec­u­tive Direc­tor for Pro­grammes and Pro­duc­tion at Dis­ney Chan­nels France.

CASE STUDY • With Car­toon Busi­ness mov­ing to Brus­sels, we shine a light on how to do busi­ness in Bel­gium and what valu­able grants and invest­ment are avail­able to help green­light your productions.

After work­ing for a few years as pro­duc­er assis­tant, pro­duc­tion man­ag­er and exec­u­tive pro­duc­er for Vin­cent Tavier, I final­ly join him at Panique as pro­duc­er in 2022.

KEYNOTE • Car­toon Busi­ness asks: How can you uncov­er the mar­ket val­ue of your ani­mat­ed IP? Whether you are look­ing for invest­ment to sur­vive, financ­ing to grow, or to sell your busi­ness. Under­stand­ing the pop­u­lar­i­ty and worth of your prop­er­ties is cru­cial, while, using author­i­ta­tive data, can help guide your deci­sion-mak­ing on the devel­op­ment and roll-out of new con­cepts and IP’s.

Alex brings over 15 years of expe­ri­ence in the TV indus­try to his cur­rent role at Par­rot Ana­lyt­ics. His back­ground includes, serv­ing most recent­ly, as head of enter­tain­ment ana­lyt­ics at Has­bro, where he focused on data-dri­ven strate­gies for con­tent. At Ende­mol Shine, as head of brands and insights, Alex led audi­ence research, con­tribut­ing to the suc­cess of the groups exten­sive net­work of pro­duc­tion com­pa­nies. His exper­tise has also been shared on inter­na­tion­al plat­forms, with recent par­tic­i­pa­tion in pan­els and dis­cus­sions at events like Car­toon­Next, C21’s Con­tent Budapest and the Edin­burgh TV Festival. 

CASE STUDY • With Car­toon Busi­ness mov­ing to Brus­sels, we shine a light on how to do busi­ness in Bel­gium and what valu­able grants and invest­ment are avail­able to help green­light your productions.

Grad­u­at­ed as Mas­ter in Art His­to­ry and Con­ser­va­tion, Katrien Maes start­ed her career at the pro­mo­tion­al agency Flan­ders Image (VAF). In 2009, she joined the team of Loca­tion Flan­ders as Deputy of the Film Com­mis­sion. In 2012, Loca­tion Flan­ders became the Screen Flan­ders and launched its own eco­nom­ic fund to attract inter­na­tion­al co-pro­duc­tions to the region. Since the sum­mer of 2021 she is oper­at­ing as Head of Pro­duc­tion of the fund and is also a board mem­ber of Cine-Regio.

PAN­EL • At this cru­cial junc­ture in the his­to­ry of pub­lic ser­vice tele­vi­sion, Car­toon Busi­ness asks: How can lin­ear broad­cast­ers weath­er the storm in this change­able and shrink­ing marketplace?

Alexan­der Kmet is a Media Man­ag­er and cre­ative pro­duc­er with more than a decade expe­ri­ence in the Slo­vak film and media indus­try and is mainy focused on strat­e­gy and project man­age­ment, for­mat devel­op­ment and dra­matur­gy, set­ting and lead­ing cre­ative and pro­duc­tion teams. At Slo­vak Tele­vi­sion and Radio (nation­al pub­lic broad­cast­er), Alexan­der has held var­i­ous roles includ­ing cre­ative pro­duc­er for youth focused con­tent, devel­op­ment spe­cial­ist and co-cre­ator of diverse prime time projects and pro­gram man­ag­er oper­at­ing the pro­gram bud­get of the broadcaster.

CASE STUDY • Car­toon Busi­ness cel­e­brates a local busi­ness leg­end, Stu­dio 100! We hear how Belgium’s pow­er­house has grown from the days of its famous founders, with their show ​“Sam­son and Gert”, to become a world­wide enter­tain­ment and dis­tri­b­u­tion company.

Anja Van Mensel joined Stu­dio 100 in 2004 as Line Pro­duc­er. Became Super­vis­ing Pro­duc­er, Head of TV & Film + Live Enter­tain­ment. In 2013, Gert Ver­hulst and Hans Bour­lon entrust­ed Anja with the role of CEO of Stu­dio 100 Benelux. In addi­tion to her role as CEO, Anja also remains active as Direc­tor Con­tent Creation.

CASE STUDY • Car­toon Busi­ness cel­e­brates a local busi­ness leg­end, Stu­dio 100! We hear how Belgium’s pow­er­house has grown from the days of its famous founders, with their show ​“Sam­son and Gert”, to become a world­wide enter­tain­ment and dis­tri­b­u­tion company.

Mar­tin Krieger is CEO of Stu­dio 100 Inter­na­tion­al, a lead­ing pro­duc­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion com­pa­ny with­in the chil­dren’s and fam­i­ly enter­tain­ment sec­tor. His pas­sion has always been the enter­tain­ment indus­try, while pass­ing through var­i­ous senior sta­tions in mar­ket­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion at The Walt Dis­ney Com­pa­ny, Stu­dio 100 Inter­na­tion­al (for­mer­ly known as Stu­dio 100 Media) and Google, before return­ing to Stu­dio 100 Inter­na­tion­al in his cur­rent position.

KEYNOTE • To Sur­vive for 2025! Why it’s a case of Sur­vival of the Smartest, accord­ing to entre­pre­neur­ial busi­ness­man, Jo Daris, co-founder of Toon2Tango.

Jo Daris start­ed his career in large FMCG com­pa­nies, end­ing up at Has­bro in a Euro­pean role for trad­ing cards and trad­ing card games. From there, he joined Stu­dio 100 to build up the inter­na­tion­al busi­ness for them, which result­ed in open­ing up the inter­na­tion­al office in Munich, the acqui­si­tion of EM Enter­tain­ment and the open­ing of Stu­dio 100 Ani­ma­tion in France. He then moved to m4e as Chief Con­tent Offi­cer. After the sale of m4e to Stu­dio 100, Jo con­tin­ued in this role in the new­ly merged com­pa­ny. Today, Jo co-owns Toon2Tango, a cre­ative pro­duc­tion hub for ani­mat­ed series and fea­tures, where he ful­fils the role of Chief Cre­ative Offi­cer. Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, he also worked for Bel­gian pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny Fobic Films in var­i­ous roles, from financ­ing to pro­duc­tion man­age­ment and pro­duc­tion. Fobic pro­duces the­atri­cal fea­tures and prime time tele­vi­sion for the Bel­gian mar­ket. Late­ly, Jo has also joined the ranks of Geron­i­mo in Bel­gium, help­ing them to sell and pro­duce high con­cept series for the stream­ing plat­forms. As a pro­duc­er, Jo is best known for ​“Wissper”, ​“Agent 203”, ​“Grisù” and for var­i­ous prime time series and the­atri­cal releas­es in Belgium.

CASE STUDY • With Car­toon Busi­ness mov­ing to Brus­sels, we shine a light on how to do busi­ness in Bel­gium and what valu­able grants and invest­ment are avail­able to help green­light your productions.

Viviane Van­fleteren is founder and CEO of Vivi Film, an inde­pen­dent Bel­gian film pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny and co- founder of the Brus­sels based ani­ma­tion stu­dio Stu­dio Souza. She has over 34 years of expe­ri­ence in film pro­duc­tion and is a mem­ber of The Acad­e­my. Her cred­its include amongst oth­ers The Triplets of Belleville and The Secret of Kells which were both select­ed as Acad­e­my Award® Nom­i­nees as well as series such as Minus­cule 2, Plank­ton Inva­sion. She recent­ly copro­duced Titi­na, and The polar bear Prince. Both films have been pro­duced in Bel­gium from lay- out to com­posit­ing with Stu­dio Souza as a lead stu­dio. Van­fleteren won in 2009, togeth­er with her copro­duc­ers from Les Arma­teurs and Car­toon Saloon, the Car­toon Movie Trib­ute Award of Euro­pean pro­duc­er of the year. She received a sec­ond nom­i­na­tion in 2023 togeth­er with the Nor­we­gian copro­duc­ers from Mikro­film for the fea­ture film Titi­na. Today Viviane is oper­at­ing on dif­fer­ent fronts. She has ani­mat­ed shorts, series, and fea­tures in dif­fer­ent stages of devel­op­ment, financ­ing, and production.

PAN­EL • At this cru­cial junc­ture in the his­to­ry of pub­lic ser­vice tele­vi­sion, Car­toon Busi­ness asks: How can lin­ear broad­cast­ers weath­er the storm in this change­able and shrink­ing marketplace?

As a PhD in Devel­op­men­tal Psy­chol­o­gy, Telid­ja Klai is respon­si­ble for 360°programming strat­e­gy and tar­get strate­gies at Ket­net the ded­i­cat­ed children’s brand of the pub­lic broad­cast­er VRT in Bel­gium. The main thrust of her activ­i­ties in this field are the devel­op­ment of chil­dren and Ketnet’s vision and val­ues. Besides her strate­gi­cal work, Telid­ja is also respon­si­ble for pro­gramme acqui­si­tions and co-pro­duc­tions ani­ma­tion for Ketnet.

PAN­EL • Beyond Doom and Gloom, why there’s opti­mism for a brighter future! Car­toon Busi­ness exam­ines the state of the ani­ma­tion indus­try today and how, out of adver­si­ty, come new oppor­tu­ni­ties and new ways of working.

Vanes­sa Brook­man, GM of Kids, Glob­al Stream­ing and Inter­na­tion­al Net­works for Warn­er Bros. Dis­cov­ery. In this role, she over­sees the oper­a­tional, edi­to­r­i­al and cre­ative for all kids con­tent for Glob­al Stream­ing and Inter­na­tion­al Net­works. She is respon­si­ble for rep­re­sent­ing and dri­ving inter­ests at a glob­al com­pa­ny lev­el to cre­ate and deliv­er the best con­tent for kids across Warn­er Bros. Dis­cov­erys net­works and plat­forms includ­ing Max. Brook­man also devel­ops and exe­cutes region­al EMEA ini­tia­tives across con­tent, brand­ing, pro­gram­ming, mar­ket­ing, com­pli­ance, PR and dig­i­tal. Brook­mans remit includes the icon­ic Car­toon Net­work brand as well as Car­tooni­to, Boomerang, Boing and Adult Swim EMEA, and asso­ci­at­ed dig­i­tal prop­er­ties on third-par­ty and owned Warn­er Bros. stream­ing plat­forms. Brook­man also co-leads the Lon­don divi­sion of Han­na-Bar­bera Stu­dios Europe.