Presented by:
Fireside Chat with Marge Dean
Sat, Nov 4th
4:15PM - 5:15PM
Epic Hall
Grab a hot cup of cocoa, some cozy blankets, and curl up for a relaxing "Fireside Chat with Marge Dean" with moderator and fellow trailblazer Mary Bredin! Help us close out this year's conference with an in-depth and deeply personal look at the history behind and current state of the industry.
Marge Dean, Head of Studio, Skybound President, Women in Animation
Marge Dean is an Emmy®-winning producer/executive and as Head of Studio at Skybound Entertainment, she is responsible for the development and production of original animated content and is establishing a new production facility for the production of Skybound properties including Invincible for Amazon Prime.
Known for building studios and animation pipelines, Dean was responsible for the design or re-design of several studios including Columbia-TriStar TV, Warner Brothers Animation, Mattel’s Playground Production, Omation (Steve Oedekerk), Technicolor Animation and Wildbrain Entertainment. Prior to joining Skybound, Dean was the Head of Crunchyroll Studios —the largest anime streaming platform in the world— where she supervised production and development of Crunchyroll Original series premiering in 2020.
In 2014, a group of women led by Dean took over the non-profit advocacy group, Women in Animation (WIA), revitalizing it. Membership grew from 120 people to over 4500 in five years as well as a reach of over 18,000 animation professionals and students. Primarily powered by volunteers, WIA has grown to a world-class advocacy organization impacting the lives of creative women, transgender and non-binary people around the world.
Mary Bredin, Creative Development Producer, TeamTO
Mary is a creative, quirky, master of story spells. She is Emmy nominated for Best “Pre-school Show” for “Justin Time”, developed and executive produced Netflix’s “True and the Rainbow Kingdom”, co-creator of Disney Jr’s “Pikiwik Pack”, developed girl led action series “Jade Amor” (22 min starting season 2 now, on France TV, SRC in Canada) and Youtube Original “Behind the Beats”. She is the co-creator of “Orion + Journal 24” - in development with TeamTO, France. She was part of the “Paw Patrol” team at the beginning. One of the EPs on the Oscar nominated feature “The Breadwinner” – an honour. She mentors diverse and upcoming voices through programs at WIFT and WIA. WGC member. She is studying improv at Second City. She received the WIFT-T award for innovation in Business in 2017. She is most proud of her son who is in his second year at McMaster.
