Unique: Attending to know Greg Ahearn and The Toy Affiliation – Toy World Journal | The enterprise journal with a ardour for toysToy World Journal

Within the August situation of Toy World, new Toy Affiliation president Greg Ahearn shared his technique for the longer term.

In late Could 2024, Greg Ahearn was named president & CEO of The Toy Affiliation, the US commerce organisation representing the toy business. Bringing to the position important expertise from each the availability and retail sides of the fence, his appointment has been extensively hailed as a clever alternative for the affiliation, which is now getting ready to maneuver ahead and evolve with the ever-changing market. Toy World’s John Baulch and Rachael Simpson-Jones caught up with Greg to seek out out his technique for the months and years forward, and why he feels figuring out alternatives, not points, is essential to the success of the business.

After we spoke to Greg, he’d been president & CEO of The Toy Affiliation for simply 30 days. Though he’s very new to the position (he tells us that to this point, he’s labored out the place in NYC is finest for a fast lunch and which workplace webcam is the proper one to look in for calls), he’s hit the bottom operating, participating in important outreach with the affiliation’s members and companions and starting to formulate his imaginative and prescient for the longer term.

‘Raised within the toy business’, Greg is an skilled and extremely revered determine. Following a lot of government positions at firms together with Mattel, Hasbro and LeapFrog, he then spent 12 years with Toys R Us. Not like some earlier Toy Affiliation presidents, Greg has a background that provides him enviable perception into the internal workings of the toy business; to make use of his {golfing} time period, he has course information. He possesses a powerful understanding of what drives the toy business, which avenues of exploration might be opened up by expertise and what the people inside it each want and need. And whereas that is clearly an enormous benefit for somebody coming into the position of president & CEO, he’s not the one one on the affiliation that is aware of a factor or two.

To learn the complete characteristic from Toy World’s August situation, click on right here.