You could say it’s been “LinkedIn official” for a little while, but at the 72nd Spielwarenmesse international trade fair this week, Asmodee USA formally introduced Julien Sharp as its new General Manager and Country Manager for the U.S. market.
Sharp joins the company from Spin Master where she most recently served as Head of U.S. Marketing for the Games, Plush, and Outdoor businesses. She founded Funnybone Toys, which was sold to Foxmind Games in 2017, and then led international business expansion at What Do You Meme? In her new role, Sharp will be based out of Asmodee’s U.S. distribution offices in Minneapolis and will report to Steve Buckmaster, Global Head of Distribution for Asmodee Group.
“We are delighted to welcome Julien to the team. With her expertise in the board game industry, we will continue to build upon our foundation of quality products and services, [and] to secure continuous growth in the U.S.,” Buckmaster says.
Sharp officially started with Asmodee USA on Nov. 7 and has spent the past few months onboarding with the company that represents games like Catan, Star Wars: X-Wing, Ticket to Ride, Pandemic, and Spot It! in the U.S. market. Asmodee was acquired by the Embracer Group last spring in a deal that was first revealed in December 2021.
The Toy Book spoke to Sharp during Spielwarenmesse for some insight into her journey thus far and the plans for Asmodee’s U.S. expansion.
“Spielwarenmesse is an opportunity for me to meet a lot of colleagues at Asmodee that I haven’t met in person before,” Sharp says. “ After the event, it will be my three-month anniversary with the company — I love the book The First 90 Days — and really, they turned over the reigns about a week ago.”
Sharp says that she was fortunate to have joined Asmodee USA with some firm groundwork already in place.
“We have really solid sales plans that I walked into — and was happy with — for our key and mass market accounts, Amazon, and — most importantly — our hobby game channels. Our specialty sales approach, I think, is phenomenal.”
Channel Planning and Increased Reach at Mass Specialty
One new area of focus is the growing “mass specialty” category of retailers that might not be small enough to be considered “specialty” in a traditional sense, but also may not be big enough to qualify as a mass retailer.
“A lot of these chains have gotten more into game sales since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and even though the industry is starting to ‘right-size’ itself, I don’t think these retailers will 100% exit the space,” she explains. “I think they see the opportunity in games, so we’re going to be focusing on those. It’s an opportunity to get what I truly feel are some of the most interesting games in the world into some new channels in the U.S. where they have not been sold previously.”
Channel planning is a key element as the team in Minneapolis begins identifying which games in its extensive distribution portfolio — including titles from CATAN Studio, Exploding Kittens, Fantasy Flight Games, Z-Man Games, Days of Wonder, Space Cowboys, and other studios — make sense for different channels.
“We want to make sure that the right game and the right items are in the right space for the consumers that will want those items,” Sharp says. “We have a wide variety, so channel planning is a big part of what we’ll do this year.”
Leveling Up the Asmodee Name
While Asmodee is a global force in the games industry, the company may not yet have the name recognition in the U.S. that is enjoyed by some others in the game aisle. According to Sharp, that speaks to the strength of the titles that Asmodee distributes while functioning as a “house of studios.”
“People might know the studio name rather than Asmodee as the ‘holding area’ that either owns the studio and lets it operate under its own name, or that sells and distributes titles for third-party studios under their own names and labels,” Sharp explains. “I’ll meet people and tell them that I work for Asmodee and they’ll say they haven’t heard of it. But then I mention Catan or Ticket to Ride and they say how much they love those games!”
Streamlining the Route to Market
Tapping into her past experience as a business owner and marketer with more than 15 years invested in the games business across multiple roles at different companies, Sharp is excited about what the future holds.
“In these experiences, I’ve had my hands in just about every aspect of the route to market, so I am absolutely thrilled to be able to take that experience and put it all into this opportunity with Asmodee,” she says. “I’ve been given a fabulous team, and together we’re going to do amazing things and keep players interested in games.”
Looking ahead, Sharp teases that there are more announcements from Asmodee USA on the horizon and that she has a three-year plan that the team is just now starting to enact.
“Our job is to be the experts in the U.S. market so that everyone has a happy outcome and sales are strong,” she says.
Look for more from Julien Sharp in The Toy Book’s annual State of the Industry Q&A roundtable when our next issue, The BIG Toy Book, lands on Feb. 28. Stay on the #pulseofplay — subscribe today!
