Unsung Hero
Over 500 Employees
Honors a team player within a larger organization who goes above and beyond to support success without seeking the spotlight.
Alissa McLean
VTech Electronics, North America
Director, Research, LeapFrog
Alissa was the driving force behind the insights that shaped LeapMove, orchestrating and analyzing extensive research with both children and adults across in-home, in-person, and online studies. Facing the challenge of developing a breakthrough product in a competitive category, she translated complex findings into clear, actionable direction for cross-functional teams. Her behind-the-scenes leadership ensured decisions were grounded in real user behavior. The result was a highly engaging product that resonated with families, ultimately becoming the #1 new item in the ITPS toy category in Fall 2025.
Amanda Rubinos Luna
Disney
Manager, Toys Merchandising
Amanda conceived and delivered the groundbreaking Key to Disneyland experience, transforming the park into an interactive, guest-driven adventure. She navigated significant operational and technical complexities to bring this first-of-its-kind concept to life, while also leading end-to-end execution across product development, in-park operations, service models, and marketing. Her leadership resulted in a highly immersive, award-winning experience that enhances guest engagement and earned both a TAGIE Award and a Pop Insider Award.In parallel, Amanda spearheaded tariff mitigation and source country diversification strategies during a period of global economic uncertainty, protecting margins and ensuring supply continuity.
Jackie Daugherty
Just Play
Director, Sales Systems
Jackie consistently goes above and beyond to support Just Play’s success, stepping in wherever needed. She plays a critical role in pricing strategy and profitability, working closely with both customers and internal teams to ensure alignment and strong outcomes. Jackie has also helped optimize backend sales processes, improving timelines and ensuring quotes and key information are accurate and delivered efficiently. Her reliability, dedication, and attention to detail make her an essential force and true unsung hero behind the company’s day-to-day operations.
Julie Parkes
Hasbro, Inc.
VP, Sales Operations & Planning, North America
Julie Parkes has been a steady force through some of the most complex challenges facing the business. Over the past year, she led the organization through tariff volatility, supply chain disruption, and a major IT outage that required rapid reinvention of order management and fulfillment processes—ensuring seamless delivery to retail partners and consumers. She brings a rare ability to align cross-functional teams, creating clarity and momentum in high-pressure situations. Throughout, Julie has consistently elevated performance, guiding teams with resilience, accountability, and a relentless focus on execution, even when the path forward is uncertain.
Lauren Phung
Jazwares
Sr. Manager, Product Design
As Senior Design Manager, Lauren Phung took on SquishPillow at its earliest stage, inheriting a brand with no established processes, templates, or guidelines. While managing a demanding design workload, she built the foundation from the ground up—creating design procedures, developing templates, and implementing scalable workflows. She also trained new team members, ensuring consistency and efficiency across the organization. Her leadership enabled the successful launch of a strong product line that has already achieved notable commercial success. Lauren’s ability to balance execution with infrastructure-building demonstrates exceptional initiative, leadership, and perseverance.
Lucy Figg
ZURU
Sr. Marketing Manager UKI & Europe
Since joining in 2022, Lucy has been instrumental in growing the UK business 26%, making ZURU the #5 toy supplier in market. She built best-in-class retail partnerships with Smyths and The Entertainer — elevating ZURU to strategic supplier status through store takeovers, catalogue support, digital campaigns and PR activations that earn industry awards for best-in-class launches every year. Most recently, Lucy expanded her remit to lead the entire European marketing function — building onboarding systems and frameworks from the ground up that now support a globally dispersed team.
Mimi Douet
The LEGO Group
AMS Supply Execution Management Specialist
Mimi identified a critical gap in the sample ordering process and built a compliant, simplified ordering form and workflow from scratch, enabling seamless execution of event activations, media partnerships, and brand moments across the US business. Operating with consistently short turnaround times, she troubleshoots order issues in real time, coordinating directly with warehouses and carriers to resolve problems quickly. Beyond execution, she proactively educates colleagues through the process, turning every interaction into an opportunity to improve how the broader team operates.
Rebecca Manliguis
Moose Toys
Director of Operations & Supply Chain
Rebecca Manliguis is the operational backbone of Moose Toys North America, quietly ensuring the company’s biggest ideas consistently reach shelves and consumers.
- Leads high-stakes operations at scale: Oversees $150M in annual inventory planning and logistics and $15M in 3PL holdings across the US, Canada and Mexico, supporting 60% of Moose’s global portfolio
- Delivers flawless retail execution: A driving force behind successful launches and feature programs with Walmart and Target, including several toys of the year
- Navigates complexity with precision: Led through tariffs, Mexico DTR setup, domestic sourcing for Wigglitz, and our biggest project ever - Moose’s new warehouse acquisition and integration
Shelby Goldenberg
Paramount
Finance Director, Global Licensing
Shelby Goldberg, Finance Director at Paramount, exemplifies strategic leadership by serving as a critical bridge across Business, Finance, Operations, Strategy, and Accounting, aligning Global PP&E priorities with enterprise-wide objectives. She drives impact through innovation, architecting scalable, automated solutions across Budgeting, LRP, Forecasting, Month-End, and Consolidated P&Ls, replacing manual processes with efficient, data-driven frameworks.
Shubhi Srivastava
Amazon
Sr. Supply Chain Manager
As a Senior Supply Chain Manager, Shubhi transformed supply chain and operations for trend-driven product categories through strategic innovation. She independently redesigned sourcing approaches to better align with short product lifecycles, significantly reducing inventory risk while improving customer order delivery speed. When standard forecasting methods created availability risk, she developed intervention protocols and comprehensive operational procedures which are now adopted organization wide. During supply chain disruptions, she proactively engaged cross-functional teams with vendor partners and logistics providers, identifying root causes and implementing solutions that significantly improved operational performance and strengthened vendor relationships across the toy manufacturing community.
Susanne Teixeira
Spin Master
VP, Legal Affairs & Intellectual Property, Legal
Susanne is well known in the industry as a fierce protector of Spin Master’s licensed and owned Intellectual Property and has worked tirelessly with various partners and retailers (Amazon, Temu, Shein) throughout North America, Europe, and Asia to make sure that infringers of Spin Master's IP are dealt with accordingly. Whether it's requiring protective identifiers and marks on our products to thwart counterfeit/ grey market products or working with outside counsel to prosecute the enforcement and defense of the Company's intellectual property at large, Susanne does each with relentless passion and determination and is recognized for same throughout the industry.
