Women in Toys, Licensing & Entertainment (WiT) has named the honorees for the 18th annual Wonder Women Awards.
The honorees for the 2023 Wonder Women Awards are Visionary Leader Award recipient Laura Zebersky, President of Jazwares; Trailblazer Award recipient Lisa McKnight, Executive Vice President and Chief Brand Officer at Mattel; and Future Leader Award recipient Nyla Hayes, CEO of Nyla Collection and creator of the Long Neckie NFT collection.
These women will be honored at the WiT Wonder Women Awards Gala, set to take place on Sunday, Oct. 1 at Pier 60, Chelsea Piers in New York City. The event honors and celebrates the women executives, entrepreneurs, and changemakers who are driving the toy, consumer products, licensing, and entertainment industries forward.
“Each [honoree] is a tremendous source of inspiration for all of us,” says Ehi Oviasu Kahn and Nancy Molenda, Co-Chairs of the Wonder Women Awards. “Their personal journeys serve as a powerful reminder of our shared capacity to thrive together. They personify the realm of possibilities that emerge when passion, determination, vision, and collaboration come together.”
Zebersky joined Jazwares in 2005, beginning in licensing and then moving to a role in sales. Zebersky’s pursuit of creating exclusive value-added experiences led to Jazwares being a pioneer of downloadable digital game codes that today continue to set the company apart. Under her leadership, Jazwares evolved its Roblox-branded business into the preferred home for top game developers on the platform, making way for DevSeries, a collection of the most popular games on the platform. Zebersky has played a key role in transforming the Squishmallows brand into a top best-selling plush as well as one of the overall top best-selling toy properties in the industry. Zebersky’s commitment to philanthropy has helped expand “Jazwares Cares,” a branch of the company dedicated to supporting children’s health, well-being, and education through play. As a natural extension of her dedication to philanthropy, Zeberksy is the current Chair of the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Southern Florida Board. In 2017, Zebersky was recognized by WiT with the prestigious Wonder Woman in Manufacturing Award.
McKnight joined Mattel in 1998. In her current role, she oversees all of Mattel’s toy categories and global brands, as well as design and development. McKnight has held several senior leadership positions at Mattel for nearly 25 years, including the global head of Barbie since 2016 and Executive Vice President and Global Head of Barbie and Dolls since 2019, where she oversaw the entire dolls portfolio for Mattel, and led a global team in brand strategy, product development, and marketing execution. Credited with leading the transformation of Barbie, under McKnight’s leadership, Barbie was one of the top global toy properties for 2020 and 2021 and one of the top global doll properties for 2020 through 2022. McKnight has also driven the significant expansion of Mattel’s portfolio, including winning back the licensing rights to the Disney Princess and Disney Frozen franchise and the successful relaunch of Monster High. McKnight also led the charge in launching the Barbie Dream Gap Project in 2018, a multiyear initiative dedicated to leveling the playing field for every girl.
At 13 years old, Hayes created the “Long Neckie Ladies” collection, the first female-led, all women generative art collection on the Ethereum blockchain, currently worth $3.4 million in digital currency. The collection features diverse women with elongated necks inspired by Hayes’ favorite dinosaur, the Brontosaurus. In 2021, TIMEPieces, a web3 community initiative by TIME, named Hayes as its first-ever Artist-in-Residence. Her collection for TIMEPieces, “Long Neckie Women of the Year” featured 1,000 unique pieces of the 100 women named to TIME’s “Women of the Year,” such as Hayes’s favorite artist Frida Kahlo, Michelle Obama, Toni Morrison, and more. In 2021, Hayes was NFT.NYC’s Emerging Artist of the Year and received a Future 50 Tech Award, and this year, she was named to AfroTech’s Future 50. Hayes is the founder of NFT Children’s Day and has been featured in TIME and TIME for Kids.
