Thailand’s M2 Animation (LEGO Friends) has hired veteran production exec Kylie Ellis as it gears up to manage a growing slate and make a move into originals. 

Succeeding Mindell Bowen as head of production, Ellis starts on December 1 and will report to studio head Owen Hurley. She’s based in Bangkok and will oversee M2’s operations both there and in Mumbai. 

Ellis had been working at WildBrain’s Vancouver outpost as VP of production since January, and she did a stint from 2009 to 2016 at Mainframe Studios (formerly Rainmaker Entertainment), where she produced several CG-animated Barbie movies. 

Her animation career began in 1998 at Vancouver’s a.k.a. Cartoon, where she served as a production manager on Cartoon Network series Ed, Edd n Eddy. She also worked as a producer at several other Canadian companies over the years, including Spin Master and Wind Sun Sky. 

Ellis’s hire comes as M2 makes a push into original content, starting with upcoming preschool series Team Mekbots Animal Rescue (39 x seven minutes), which Peacock greenlit in February. To meet its growing workflow needs, the company set up a new 150-person Mumbai office in April and recruited Hurley, a former Technicolor exec, in August.