Part of a board of four of the UK subsidiary of Tyco Toys Inc. of the USA I was drafted in to improve our retail presence and distribution, along with improving consumer advertising and promotion.

As Marketing Director and responsible for consumer marketing, trade marketing and quality assurance, I improved media efficiency, made our investment in our retail customers’ stores more effective, removed slow-moving product lines and initiated the regular reporting and analysis of profitability by customer, as one of our larger customers was actually losing us money.

Event management was a major part of the role. Toy Fair presence was more commercially-focussed and represented a major investment for the company as we consolidated our strong local market position with a 450m² stand to launch dramatically our new products.

Heavily involved in PR, I managed a product line recall as well as more positive, pro-active activities, such as product launches.

I also became heavily involved in UK/European product line development and forging closer relations with our US parent company.

Overall we turned the business around from significant losses to returning a net profit of over £1m, all in 18 months, before the parent company was  bought out by a competitor, Mattel.