Athena Georgaklis

Athena Georgaklis is the Head of

Content for Nelvana. A highly

respected animation executive,

Athena leads the acquisition of

rights and the development of all

original content for Nelvana.

Athena is committed to develop

creator-driven content, working

with the studio’s producers,

creators, and talent around the

world that will resonate with kids of all ages, and find a home in all markets. She helmed the creation of Nelvana’s The Most Magnificent Thing, DNAce, Agent Binky: Pets of the Universe Ready for Space Travel, The Hardy Boys live action series and many more to come.
Athena has worked in Canadian broadcast and production for more than 22 years. Prior to Nelvana, she oversaw all original animation production for Corus Entertainment’s kids’ networks, supervising the development and production of Canadian content in both English and French. During her time, she led the production and development of hit shows like Johnny Test, Camp Lakebottom, Mysticons, 6TEEN, Cupcake and Dinosaur, Rocket Monkeys, and the Total Drama Island franchise.

Brenda Gilbert

Brenda Gilbert is the President of

BRON Media Corp, a company

she co-founded and leads with

her husband, Aaron L. Gilbert.

 BRON Media Corp. is the parent

company to operating units BRON

Studios, BRON Releasing, BRON

Digital, and BRON Ventures

(holds an interest in a portfolio

of 10 content companies). The

BRON group of companies are

industry leaders in production,

finance and the sales and marketing of film, series television and animation.

Brenda has a special focus on BRON’s non-scripted arm BRON Life and is currently an Executive Producer on several projects. Over her 20+ years in the media space, Brenda has produced, or executive produced more than two-dozen projects, including the animated film The Willoughbys, which premiered on Netflix in 2020.

Founded in 2010, BRON has been behind more than 100 productions and is proud to have been part of 32 Academy Award nominations and 6 Academy Award wins for the films Fences, Joker, Bombshell, Roman J. Israel Esq., and Judas and The Black Messiah.

In addition to her role on BRON’s Board of Directors, Brenda sits on the board of Film Independent, she was the track chair for mentoring initiatives with Woman in Animation, is an Advisor to the Vancouver Film School and La Salle College, plus volunteers time with Vancouver Community College.

Alison Fraser 

Alison brings a wealth of experience

in delivering national programs,

and leading large marketing,

communications and content

delivery initiatives with

organizations such as Microsoft,

Telefilm Canada, ELLE Canada

and TELUS to the jury. She

started her career in TV working

with Court TV, HBO and BET in

New York City. She holds an undergraduate degree in Communications from York University, a master’s degree in Journalism from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York City, completed the Women in Film and Television Media Leadership Program at the Schulich School of Business, and is pursuing an Executive MBA at SFU. She also serves on the boards of Women in Film and Television – Vancouver, Eastside Culture Crawl and the Community Arts Council of Vancouver.

Heather Puttock

Heather has been working in the

kids and family content creation

space for 20+ years. She has

produced hundreds of episodes

for clients such Netflix, Mattel,

Amazon, Spinmaster, PBS, Hasbro,

Cartoon Network, Warner Bros

and more; and worked with many

brands including Barbie,

Wolverine & The X-Men, Angry

Birds, Hatchimals, Transformers,

Hot Wheels and others. 

She is a co-founder and partner at Kickstart Entertainment and currently serves as President from Vancouver, B.C. Heather is responsible for overseeing the many projects that have been created within and serviced by the studio. She also takes great pride in nurturing Kickstart’s international partnerships and productions to produce world class content for global audiences. 
Heather has cultivated relationships with many Canadian creators who inspired her to open Eh- Okay Entertainment, an independent IP company that focuses on Canadian talent and stories. 
Most recently she founded 708 Sound Studio, a new voice recording and audio post facility located in the Strathcona and specializing in the animation industry’s voiceover and sound design needs. 
Heather has a passion for sharing and supporting career advancement in content creation and wholeheartedly believes that storytelling is what connects us as humans. 

Julie Stewart

Athena Georgaklis is the Head of

Content for Nelvana. A highly

respected animation executive,

Athena leads the acquisition of

rights and the development of all

original content for Nelvana.

Athena is committed to develop

creator-driven content, working

with the studio’s producers,

creators, and talent around the

world that will resonate with kids of all ages, and find a home in all markets. She helmed the creation of Nelvana’s The Most Magnificent Thing, DNAce, Agent Binky: Pets of the Universe Ready for Space Travel, The Hardy Boys live action series and many more to come.
Athena has worked in Canadian broadcast and production for more than 22 years. Prior to Nelvana, she oversaw all original animation production for Corus Entertainment’s kids’ networks, supervising the development and production of Canadian content in both English and French. During her time, she led the production and development of hit shows like Johnny Test, Camp Lakebottom, Mysticons, 6TEEN, Cupcake and Dinosaur, Rocket Monkeys, and the Total Drama Island franchise.

Kim Dent Wilder

Kim brings exceptional

experience, leadership, and

passion to her role as Executive

Vice President at Mainframe

Studios. As a proven strategic

business leader, Kim has played

an integral role in Mainframe’s

expansion and diversification.

From overseeing and managing

its growing film and television

operations to identifying and developing new business opportunities, Kim is the synergistic ‘glue’ at Mainframe. She nurtures the company’s creative artistry while also ensuring efficiencies across all creative and technological processes. She provides not just leadership and mentorship, but also the vision to expand the company across Canada.

Kathy Antonsen

Kathy Antonsen is an award

winning producer / creator

whose credits include THE

HOLLOW for Netflix and NERDS

AND MONSTERS for Corus

YTV. Some of her producer

credits include BEING IAN,

YAKKITY YAK, YVON OF THE

YUKON and THE LEGEND OF

FROSTY THE SNOWMAN.

She has produced numerous shows through development and production and has extensive experience creating budgets, working with coproduction partners, distributors, broadcasters and on CMF funded projects.

Kirsten Newlands

As VP, Production, Kids &

Animation at Hello Sunshine,

Kirsten is
responsible for all

production activities in the Kids &

Animation division.
Kirsten is a

passionate executive leader who

has been nominated for two


Emmys; and has won multiple

Canadian Screen Awards and Leo

Awards. She has
been named as

one of British Columbia's Most

Influential Women - Stem Stars.

​


She has Executive Produced more than 800 half hours of animated children's
television, including popular hits such as My Little Pony, The Deep, Cloudy
with a Chance of Meatballs, Pickwik Pack and Carmen Sandiego. Prior to
joining Hello Sunshine, she consulted for both Guru Studio Ltd. (True & the
Rainbow Kingdom, Paw Patrol) and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (Pretzel & The
Puppies, Carmen Sandiego). Previously, Kirsten was SVP, Animation Production
for Wildbrain (DHX) where she managed all animation production activities.
She oversaw the robust slate of both wholly owned series, as well as the
work for hire business, and operations across three studios with a combined
eighteen animated series in production. Kirsten's enthusiasm to nurture the
creative artistry of the studio's productions positioned the studio as a key
player internationally in the creation of kids' content. She was actively
involved in CineCity, CHUM Television's commitment to the local film
community to help emerging visible minority and aboriginal filmmakers
produce short, dramatic films in the province of British Columbia. She is a
Founding member of Drawn Together Vancouver, a past board member of Women in
Film and Video Vancouver, is a graduate of the University of Western
Ontario, the National Screen Institute's Totally Television Programme, and
of the Canadian Film Centre's Producer's Lab. She currently sits on the
Executive for Women in Animation's Vancouver chapter.

Kulbinder Saran Caldwell

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Marcia Gwendolyn Jones

As a Feature Animation Producer,

Marcia Gwendolyn Jones catalyzes

creative vision from script to

screen.  Known as “The Closer,”

Marcia delivers challenging

projects on time and on or under

budget, while balancing artistic

goals and creative vision.  Marcia

creates high crew morale even

under intense deadlines through

great collaboration and

communication, so that teams feel valued, supported, connected, thrive and do their best work.  Born and raised in New York, Marcia was an expat from 2013-2021, living and working in Canada, Ireland, and France.  She recently returned to the US to join Skydance Animation, producing an unannounced feature.  

Kylie Ellis

Kylie Ellis has worked in the

entertainment/animation industry

for more than 20 years. Currently

she serves as the VP, Production

at WildBrain Studios. Prior to this

she acted as Supervising

Producer on the animated action

series, Invincible, with Skybound

Entertainment and produced a

yet to be announced series with

one of the top animation studios

in the country. Kylie has worked

in a range of production roles on animated projects including series Ed, Edd n’ Eddy for Cartoon Network, Bob the Builder for HiT Entertainment, and feature films Escape from Planet Earth and Ratchet and Clank. She is passionate about collaborating with artistic, technical and production talent to provide a creative and collaborative environment in which teams can thrive. Kylie is also the Chair of Women in Animation, Vancouver Chapter, where her dedication to advancing the careers of women in the field of animation is front and centre.

Raila Gutman

Raila is the Director, Member

Development at the CMPA-BC

where she supporting BC

independent producers. Working

closely with members and

up-and-coming producers, Raila

oversees professional

development opportunities,

international development and

outreach as well as managing the event sponsorship portfolio and working with community partners.



Raila was the inaugural Program Director for the Pacific Screenwriting Program, a non-profit co-founded by CMPA-BC, Netflix and Creative BC in August 2018. The PSP provides support and career-advancement opportunities to BC-based film and television writers. Under Raila?s leadership, the PSP made meaningful strides in building and nurturing BC?s screenwriter community. Before the PSP, Raila served as Marketing Director at Corus Entertainment.

Shabnam Rezaei

Shabnam founded Big Bad Boo

Studios to produce and distribute

quality family programming.

Shabnam has produced and

directed Hulu Original Series

“The Bravest Knight”, winner

of 2020 GLAAD Award. She has

also created and directed original

 shows such as “16 Hudson”

(Amazon Prime/TVOKids), mini-series “Lili & Lola”(Oznoz/ICI TV), and “ABC with Kenny G” musical series.
Shabnam started her career producing series “Mixed Nutz”, and her first creation was “1001 Nights”, currently airing in 80 countries on Disney, Teletoon, Discovery Kids, Gloob Brazil, RTBF Belgium, and MTV3 Finland.

Based in Vancouver and New York, the company’s own streaming channel Oznoz provides cartoons in 10+ languages including Thomas and Friends, Bob the Builder, Babar and more.
With a BS in Computer Science, a BA in German Literature from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA from New York University, Shabnam spent 10 years in financial software industry in New York and London at Fortune 500's such as Deloitte & Touche and Misys. She has been featured on CBC, CNN, Forbes, BBC, FOX, the New York Times and NPR. She was born in Iran and grew up in Austria. She speaks English, German, Persian, French, and Spanish and is raising her two daughters trilingual.

Virginie Lavallée

Virginie is a Film and TV Producer

with 15 years of experience in

live-action and CG animation.

Her live-action films have been

screened in festivals around the

world, such as the Cannes Film

Festival and the Busan

International Film Festival.

In 2011 she was offered an unexpected opportunity in the CG world and fell in love with the animation community. Since, she has worked on some of the most exciting properties in the world with partners like Disney, Netflix, HBO, TeamTo and Splash Entertainment.

She is also co-founder of The Happy Producers, a virtual community that promotes wellbeing in animation production. Through their e-learning programs, she teaches coordinators and project managers the mindset and strategies for low stress, high efficiency projects.