The team at educational toy company Click-A-Brick congratulate the winners of ToyNews’ Women of the Year awards, saying it’s great to see women getting recognition in the toy industry.
Earlier this month, Underground Toys' licensing director Robyn Cowling won the ToyNews Woman of the Year award while Generation Media's Lauren Coombs won the Rising Star award sponsored by Gameplan Europe, Lottie creator and Arklu co-founder Lucie Follett won the Innovator award, and MGA and Zapf marketing manager Marian Davis won the Marketeer award, sponsored by Norton & Co. This is the second year ToyNews has held the Women of the Year awards.
“I love the toy and licensing industries and it’s a very close knit community, so it’s quite an accolade to have been nominated by my peers and to have won,” Cowling said of her award win.
The awards were presented to the female role models in the toy industry at a special ceremony at the Home House venue in central London, where over 100 industry executives showed up to honor them.
"We are absolutely delighted with the reaction to this year's ToyNews Women of the Year event " said Samantha Loveday, editor of ToyNews. "It went brilliantly, we had four very worthy winners and it was great to see so many people coming out to support it.”
Honoring women in the toy industry like ToyNews does is a good way to encourage more women to choose it as a career path, Co-Founders of educational toy company Click-A-Brick Jason Smith and Georg de Gorostiza say. It’s important to have role models for young women to look up to in various industries, the entrepreneurs say, and recognizing the contributions of these women gives them a well-deserved status as role models for the up-and-coming generation of girls who will have to choose a career path soon.
“First off, congratulations to Robyn on her win, as well as Lauren, Lucie and Marian,” Smith said. “ToyNews is a prestigious publication within the toy industry, so they must be thrilled to have been honored by the publication and their peers. It’s great to see women getting honored this way, as it will hopefully encourage more women to get into the toy industry. It helps any industry to have a multitude of perspectives, including, of course, female perspectives. So, we’re glad to see ToyNews doing its part to encourage more female participation in the industry, as it benefits everyone involved.”
As Click-A-Brick continues to grow, the co-founders say, they will continue with their commitment to hiring a diverse workforce that includes women, adding that gender barriers are starting to change in the toy aisle, so it only makes sense for them to change within the toy companies themselves.