• Heleen Rouw (pictured) will step down as director of kids & family film festival Cinekid on January 1, and its board is hoping to replace her shortly thereafter. Rouw, who previously held marketing roles at Warner Bros. and eOne, has been running the Amsterdam-based event for the last five years. She’s leaving to take on a new program director role at Creative Industries Immersive Impact Coalition, which funds technology applications like AI chatbots and augmented reality games. For the time being, Nicolien Luttels has been named interim director of Cinekid, which attracts roughly 65,000 people each year. The latest edition of the annual festival just wrapped up on November 3, distributing more than US$75,000 in awards to producers. 

• London-based toy distributor Grant & Bowman has lured Gabor von Scheven away from Sambro International to serve as its new sales manager for continental Europe. Grant & Bowman has Sonic as one of its licenses, and von Scheven will be responsible for launching a new range of more affordable licensed products for budget-conscious European consumers. He previously worked at Sambro for 10 years as a senior sales manager, and was a branch manager at Intertoys in Amsterdam before that. “We are really just starting our journey in Europe with regards to brands and licensing, as we have traditionally only been a closeout company for almost 60 years!” says Daniel Estrin, director of Grant and Bowman Limited. “Our sister company (Grant and Bowman Inc), based in California, have been on their journey down this road for longer than we have and it’s on the back of their success that we are looking to integrate a new and exciting range to our offering too.”

Updated 11/13/2024 with quote from Daniel Estrin.