Genius Brands International appoints Lloyd Mintz

Joins to newly created position of Vice President of Consumer Products

Genius Brands International has announced that Lloyd Mintz has been appointed to the role of Vice President of Consumer Products. The announcement was made today by Stone Newman, President, Global Consumer Products at Genius Brands International (GBI), to whom Mintz will report.

Mintz’ joins GBI on the heels of Newman’s July appointment. Newman and Mintz will work together with retailers and licensees to build comprehensive global consumer products’ programs for each of the company’s brands, including Baby Genius®, Secret Millionaires Club, Stan Lee’s Mighty 7 (SLAM 7), Thomas Edison’s Secret Lab and others in development.

Additionally, Newman and Mintz will manage licensing programs for properties that fall under GBI’s wholly owned subsidiary, A Squared Entertainment, LLC, including Psycho Bunny, From Frank, Celessence Technologies, WowWee® brands, ElectroKidz, MIP and Archie Comics.

"We are thrilled to welcome Lloyd to the team. He is a seasoned executive in development and licensing, and brings a strategic and conscientious approach to building meaningful retail programs,” commented Newman. “He has solid experience in all aspects of the licensing and retail industries and a strong network of potential partners who we look forward to introducing GBI brands.”

"I am excited to develop worldwide programs for GBI's brands and am confident the company’s mission to provide ‘content with a purpose’ will resonate with both consumers and retailers alike,” added Mintz. “We know that our goal to provide “products with purpose” will appeal to a segment of the market that is currently underserved, and something parents are looking for. We look forward to working with our licensee and retail partners to develop quality products for kids.”

With more than 20 years of experience in licensing, merchandising and new business development, Mintz is widely respected for his expertise in leveraging brand equity through licensing. Since 2000 he has managed his own consultancy during which time he negotiated more than 150 licensing agreements and generated over $600MM in cumulative retail sales on behalf of clients across a range of brand owners and manufacturers. Most recently, he worked as EVP of Licensing for NYC-based Galaxy Brands that owned the AND1 and AVIA athletic brands.

Prior to starting his consulting business, Mintz worked at Hasbro, Inc. as the Vice President of Domestic Corporate Licensing where he pioneered the effort to license Hasbro’s classic game brands, such as MONOPOLY, to slot machine manufacturers – an industry that was virtually untapped for licensing at the time and led the department through five years of unprecedented growth. He got his start in the licensing industry at Disney Consumer Products where he oversaw Disney’s largest licensee, Mattel, Inc., and their development of toy programs for classic properties such as Lion King, Winnie the Pooh, and Aladdin.

Mintz graduated from Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT and earned his MBA from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management.