Athena Georgaklis is the Head of Development 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.

Daytime Emmy nominee and 5-time Canadian Comedy Award nominee Brandon Lane is an award-winning director, showrunner, screenwriter and producer. He currently works as Development Producer at legendary Canadian animation-house Nelvana, previously working as Production Executive for Teletoon, YTV, Treehouse and Adult Swim Canada. Over the past decade, Brandon has overseen the production of over 380 hours of content, collaborating with partners like Disney, Netflix, HBO, Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Sesame Workshop, Hulu and Sony Pictures Animation. He currently showruns and directs the Youth Media Alliance Award of Excellence-winning preschool series Miss Persona, airing daily on Treehouse. Brandon co-created, wrote and directed the award-winning feature film Princess Sparkly Butt & The Hot Dog Kid for Teletoon. The film was adapted from an award-winning Toronto Fringe Festival play Brandon also wrote and directed. He is showrunner, director and co-creator of Space Dragon & Kim for Shaftesbury Kids and was co-showrunner on D.N. Ace for Teletoon. He is the creator and head writer of Bunker Buds, currently in development with CBC Kids through the CBC Creative Relief Fund.

Cory Morrison is a Co-Founder and Creative Director at Big Jump Entertainment.  He has worked on 100’s of hours of animation content spanning over 23 years from pre-school to prime time including the likes of “F” is for Family, Bountyhunters, Brickleberry, Trailer Park Boys and the CBC holiday special Magic Hockey Skates. Cory also co-created Shutterbugs currently airing on TVO, SRC and Knowledge Kids and co-developed the upcoming 65X5 min series Big Words, Small Stories commissioned by TVO, TFO, SRC , Knowledge Kids and ABC-Australia to air in 2021. 

Cory continues to helm Big Jump’s Creative Affairs in both service production and several properties in development with major partners and talent across North America.

Willem Wennekers is currently a co-creator, executive producer, and showrunner on the Adult Swim Canada series Doomsday Brothers. He is also the co‐creator, executive producer, and showrunner of the adult‐animated hit Fugget About It. Willem has written for the Canada‐Australia‐US youth series Oh Yuck: The Encyclopedia of Everything Nasty, and the feature films The Night Class, Weirdsville, Kiss and Cry, Step Dogs, Pups United, Full Out, Treasure Hounds, From the Vine and the forthcoming Buckley’s Chance. His comedy pieces have appeared in National Lampoon Online and in the book National Lampoon’s Magazine Rack.