Company Profile - MGA

Leading from the front

Seven weeks after joining MGA Entertainment (MGA) as managing director, UK & Ireland, Sara Taylor spoke to Rachael Simpson-Jones about how she is tackling some of the challenges the company has been facing, and why both product and people matter so much to her.

When the opportunity to take up the helm at MGA UK & Ireland was presented to her, Sara says she was ready for both a change and a challenge. Many readers will know that Sara was previously at Spin Master, working there for 14 years and in the position of UK, Ireland and Amazon Europe general manager for three years. Prior to this, Sara also held senior positions at Funrise and Mattel. In total, this stalwart of the toy industry has some three decades of experience behind her and is highly respected for her expertise and knowledge, as well as her warm leadership style – and all these qualities have an integral part to play in her plans for MGA Entertainment. The new role is bigger than her previous one. As UK & Ireland MD, Sara is fully responsible for the entire UK team inclusive of finance, operations, sales, marketing, HR, planning and more, all under the one roof in Milton Keynes.

“The big question for me was whether I wanted a 20+ year career at Spin Master or a new direction,” she explains. “The need for change won out, and I must be a sucker for hard work too. Even before I took up the post, I was fully aware of the challenges I’d be inheriting. The good news is that the situation at MGA, which is fundamentally a great company, isn’t as tricky as has been made out. This is my second month here and not only is it clear what needs to be done, it’s achievable too.”

Sara is more than happy to address what all this actually means. It’s not unfair to say that, like the toy market as a whole, MGA has had a challenging couple of years (though not in terms of sales or brand performance, which continue to be deeply impressive). Firstly, Sara is hoping to bring some stability to what she is adamant will be a long-term position: she’s the third person to head up the UK & Ireland operation in two years. Andrew Laughton, who was with the company for 12 years, was succeeded by Neil Bandtock after his retirement, and Neil then parted ways with the company after just 15 months.

Sara joins MGA as the company is transferring all its UK stock to a new, one-site warehouse, in a move which will greatly improve logistics operations and see the end to issues with the supply chain, warehousing and deliveries which MGA faced as a result of the pandemic.

Sara came into the position with her eyes open to the challenges MGA has faced and is determined to overcome them. Sara has already penned a personal letter to the trade, thanking it for its patience and promising change. The hope is that the trade, particularly retailers that have had trouble securing stock of best-selling lines, will once again believe in MGA, trust in its ability to deliver, and rebuild previously brilliant partnerships. Sara says: “I want people to know that once our final warehouse move is completed, we’ll deliver 100% of their order, on the day we said we’d deliver it, no questions asked. It’s so important to me and to my team that we get this right going forward.”

Given its challenges, it’s remarkable that MGA has still been able to pull off the performance it has to date. As we all know, the company has some phenomenally successful brands in its portfolio including L.O.L. Surprise! and Rainbow High. Overseen by Isaac Larian, MGA Entertainment’s Founder and CEO, the company’s product development teams continue to produce toys kids really (really) want, which have played a big part in mitigating the logistics issues.

“There are two things that are very important to me: product and people,” says Sara. “Clearly, we have the former – MGA Entertainment owns several topperforming brands across several categories – and it also has an exceptionally strong team of people. It took me 20 years to realise it, but I absolutely love leadership. I love to enthuse my team, so each person can then enthuse their own teams. There’s a great line from Simon Sinek that I love: ‘People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it’. The ‘why’ is so important here. MGA benefits from having an incredibly strong team of clever, hardworking, committed people that really want to produce great toys, and with my style of hands-on leadership – which involves rolling my sleeves up and getting involved at every level – I truly think that from here, the only way is up.”

Sara is undeniably passionate about people. When she starts talking about them, she doesn’t want to stop, her energy and enthusiasm suffusing every sentence. Great things happen when teams pull together, she tells me, and her intention is to reinject this ethos into the MGA workforce. Covid and homeworking has meant the team has lost some of its ‘stickiness’, as Sara puts it. Whether by Teams/Zoom or face-to-face, Sara is driving a collaborative approach with kindness at its heart. She’s a warm and empathic leader, the kind people naturally respond positively to.

Sara says the culture at MGA is better than she expected it to be. In fact, she says it’s superb. A recent get-together, at which she was officially introduced to the rest of the UK & Ireland teams, was apparently a huge success: friendly, with a party atmosphere and fun vibe. Of course, there are always improvements that can be a made to a company’s culture but again, the chance to make these improvements is just another reason why Sara was so keen to take up the role.

Sara has plenty of opportunities to make the most of too, not least of which are recent or upcoming product launches. Best-selling fashion doll brand Rainbow High has recently launched its fourth series of dolls, which features characters with albinism and vitiligo. To celebrate the launch of the new line and to highlight the importance of inclusivity in the toy industry, Rainbow High partnered with both Zebedee Talent modelling agency and the Vitiligo Society charity to create representative content, generate awareness of vitiligo and albinism, commission new research, and conduct media interviews on the conditions. Diversity and representation matter to parents and kids, who can expect to see many more of these sorts of toys from MGA.

The company’s content development, too, is introducing new and exciting elements for kids to get stuck into. Although MGA has long been reticent to share too many details ahead of launches, Sara does mention the exciting competitive Rainbow High vs. Shadow High theme - in form of a ‘world-famous’ music competition, Rainbowvision – that will offer huge opportunities for autumn 2023. And it’s not just toys where MGA continues to excel, but entertainment too. The Rainbow High YouTube channel has just shy of 600k subscribers and counting, and the episode which introduced the monochrome Shadow High students (Season 3, Episode 3 of Rainbow High) has racked up over 3m views. L.O.L. Surprise! is also introducing a new theme, a Winter Fashion Show, in line with a rapid product development cycle that this year has already seen the Queens and Fierce product lines hit shelves (and disappear rapidly from them soon after).

So how will MGA be supporting its products under Sara’s leadership? One area she’s placing in the spotlight is ‘retail-tainment’, an area the company has previously been very successful in. From the indies right up to the majors, MGA will be placing much more investment behind in-store activations, something consumers really want. There’s some dark months

ahead of us all, Sara notes, so a trip to a local toy shop could offer families an economical and fun way to get out the house and enjoy family time together. Of course, such activations are also a boon for retailers, which will surely help with the relationship repairs being undertaken.

Marketing, meanwhile, will span multiple platforms and touchpoints so that campaigns reach consumers wherever they are. An unsettled economic outlook makes locking in plans tricky, so Sara will be encouraging her teams to keep a weather eye on EPOS data and consumer trends, and to react accordingly: maybe placing a little more investment here, pulling back slightly there. Her approach depends on adaptability and flexibility, something smaller companies are generally better known for. However, given the team MGA has in place and the powerhouse brands in its portfolio, there’s no reason it shouldn’t work.

I asked Sara what her mid- to long-term goals are. Understandably, there’s a certain level of growth she wants to achieve; underpinned by the new warehouse setup and a fresh outlook on business with the trade, the sky is the limit there. Another best-selling brand capable of reaching the same lofty heights as L.O.L. Surprise! would obviously be nice too, and she also wants to streamline some of the behind-the-scenes processes to make MGA a much easier company to trade with at a global level. Describing it as previously ‘complex, difficult and awkward’, Sara says the changes its making should, in the next few years, see MGA win some Supplier of the Year awards. Those would look good on a shelf next to its numerous Toy of the Year accolades, I’m sure.

Sara also wants to turn MGA Entertainment into the undisputed first choice of toy companies to work for: an aspirational, even more welcoming place where talented creatives from across all sectors of the toy industry can find a place and the ‘why’ behind what they do.

“I’ve taken my 32 years in the toy industry, uprooted myself from a long-term role at the superb Spin Master, and come to work for MGA – that must say a lot about the stock I place in this company and it’s people,” Sara says. “This is not the aggressive, hard-line company people think it is. I’d heard that before I came here, and I know plenty of others have too. But now I’m here I have discovered for myself all the brilliant, passionate people that work here, and I want to put that particular myth to bed. I’m passionate about succession planning, so we’ll be putting development and retention plans in place for our existing workforce as well as new starters. We want to attract new blood to MGA to join us as we create even more of the powerhouse brands consumers know and love and restore our reputation as a leading supplier of world class toys. Hopefully, by coming here myself, I’m setting an example of why they should.”