MATT BERKOWITZ

Director of Animation, Preschool & Kids

Netflix

Matt joined the streamer’s preschool & kids content team in July 2024. Prior to that, he was President and Chief Creative Officer at Thunderbird Entertainment and Atomic Cartoons, overseeing all of the company’s animated and scripted content brands, and supporting overall studio creative and the unscripted division. During his seven-plus years with Atomic/Thunderbird, Matt set up and produced series including The Last Kids on Earth, Hello Ninja and Princess Power (all for Netflix), Mermicorno: Starfall (Warner Bros Discovery) and Super Team Canada(Bell).

GARY CHENG

Program Deputy Director

MOMO Kids TV

Gary has nearly 30 years of experience in media and production. He focuses on creating innovative children’s programming and interactive family content that blends education with entertainment to help kids and parents learn and grow together in a fun and engaging way.

MARY-ELLEN MULLANE

Acting Head of Children and Family Department

ABC Australia

Prior to stepping into this interim role in mid-June, Mary-Ellen led the children and family department’s commissioning team. As such, she facilitated and oversaw the financing and delivery of a broad slate of award-winning animation, factual, factual entertainment and scripted/unscripted series, as well as online content, in collaboration with a wide range of independent film and television content-makers, both in Australia and around the world. Prior to joining the ABC, Mary-Ellen worked as a Senior Commissioning Editor at Australia’s National Indigenous Television, where she also commissioned an award-winning slate of animation, factual and drama content. She also previously managed the National Documentary Program on behalf of Screen Australia for six years, working closely with the NSFA and other national cultural and financial institutions. Mary-Ellen is a past International Emmy juror for both documentary and children’s content.

SARAH MULLER

Senior Head of Commissioning 7+

BBC Children’s and Education

Sarah is responsible for content decisions across multiple content genres for young audiences, including drama, animation, factual and entertainment. Before rejoining the BBC in June 2019, she was VP of Children’s and Youth Programming at Sony Pictures Television, with responsibility for the Pop and Sony Music Channels, and she also oversaw the Milkshake! brand as Head of Children’s at Channel 5. Sarah previously spent nine years working in various acquisitions and development roles at CBBC, on the heels of serving as Managing Director of Elephant Productions.

VICKY SCHRODERUS

Senior Executive International Co-Productions & Acquisitions

YLE Finland

Vicky selects and negotiates all acquisitions and pre-buys for kids ages zero to 12, as well as co-producing international content primarily for eight- to 12-year-olds and overseeing dubbing. She joined YLE in 1997 and has worked in acquisitions for other programming genres including non-English fiction, music and extreme sports over the course of her long tenure with the Finnish public broadcaster. Vicky earned a Master’s degree in Business Administration at the Turku School of Economics, and she started her career in the market research department at Schweizerische Mobiliar in Switzerland.

CARLENE TAN

Director, Original Production & Development, Kids

Warner Bros. Discovery APAC

Carlene is responsible for identifying new IPs and producing original series for Warner Bros. Discovery’s kids & family brands in Asia Pacific, including Cartoon Network, Boomerang, POGO and streaming service HBO GO.

Based in Singapore, she oversees a slate of current APAC originals that includes Lamput (the second season of which was nominated for a 2019 International Kids Emmy) and Monster Beach. Working with the WBD kids content team in India, Carlene is also helping to steer production on local originals such as Titoo, Ekans and LambuG TinguG.

Prior to joining WBD in 2020, Carlene developed original animated content for The Walt Disney Company in Southeast Asia, and was a studio head at One Animation, where she produced Oddbods and Insectibles.

Carlene also previously managed the Singapore arm of Cloudpic Global, producing digital projects for Asian mobile apps. And she was one of the founding members of Singapore’s first animation studio, Peach Blossom Media.

IDA YANG

Director of Sales & Global Distribution

Bilibili

With close to 20 years of experience distributing kids content and Japanese anime programming to companies including Netflix, Disney, Animax Korea & Asia and Aniplus, Ida’s role at Bilibili is focused on helping producers bring their kids shows to fruition.

She is currently focused on building an IP foundation for Bilibili’s own preschool series Reggie Rex! (104 x six minutes), based on a picture book by Tatsuya Miyanishi called You Look Yummy! That was released in 2003 by Japan’s POPLAR Publishing. A first season of the show debuted last year on Bilibili, as well as on other TV channels and steamers including China’s Mango TV and iQIYI, South Korea’s Daewon TV, Taiwan’s Momo Kids, RTÉ Junior in Ireland and beIN Jeem & Baraem TV in MENA. Season two is slated to roll out later this year.