Toronto’s Boat Rocker Studios has promoted Gia DeLaney to SVP of global sales kids & family. Based in New York and continuing to report to Boat Rocker’s managing director and president of rights Jon Rutherford, DeLaney is responsible for worldwide distribution of the studio’s slate, which includes Kingdom Force, Dino Ranch, Remy & Boo, Love Monster, The Next Step and The Strange Chores.

DeLaney has worked at Boat Rocker Studios for the last four years, most recently as VP of global sales, and in that time she has led the kids programming sales division, where she negotiated the sales deal of Boat Rocker’s Danger Mouse series to CBS All Access in August. In June meanwhile, Boat Rocker closed six new international broadcast deals for its animated preschool series The Polos.

Prior to joining Boat Rocker, she worked as the VP of program sales at Cloudco (formerly American Greetings), where she marketed the distributor’s kids content, including Care Bears, to international broadcasters. Before that, she served as VP of international program sales at 4kids Media, where she handled sales for its popular series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Yugioh! and Pokémon. 

It’s been a busy few years for the Boat Rocker, which went through some restructuring last year after the Canadian media company bought the kids and family division of FremantleMedia in January 2018. In a move to better integrate its teams, the Boat Rocker melded the distribution and brands teams together under the Boat Rocker Studios banner.

Continuing to integrate its divisions, Boat Rocker tapped Fremantle’s EVP of kids & family Bob Higgins to continue on as EVP of content for kids and family role. Since then Disney Junior US picked up the prodco’s upcoming 52 x 11-minute CG-animated preschool series Dino Ranch to premiere in 2021. Yesterday, Boat Rocker announced that it had signed Florida-based toyco Jazwares as global master toy partner for the new show.