By: Katie Bailey and Ryan Tuchow

France’s Bayard Animation has promoted Alexandre Hénin to managing director of its studio, marking a swing back to TV content for this experienced kids media executive.

Although Hénin has been with the company since 2021, he previously worked in business development, focusing on the BD Kids label of the Bayard Éditions Jeunesse publishing division. But Hénin has a rich background in kids TV, having started his career in the mid-2000s as a programming manager at Nickelodeon, where he helped launch the global broadcaster’s two channels in France. He joined France Télévisions in 2012 as a children’s content acquisitions executive, and then worked as a creative producer at Cottonwood Media from 2017 to 2019, before setting up his own consulting shingle (extrAH!) in 2019. 

Hénin will now have a chance to leverage all of this TV experience at Bayard, working with a portfolio that includes Little Brown Bear and two new productions the studio is bringing to Annecy in June—CG-animated series SamSam: Cosmic Adventures (52 x 11 minutes) for France Télévisions, RTS and TeleQuebec; and one season of 2D-animated Zouk (52 x 11 minutes), which Canal+ airs across Europe. Bayard also has several new development concepts in the works that it plans to introduce to market at the French animation festival.

Based in the Paris head office, Hénin started in his new role in April and reports to Bayard director Nathalie Becht.