Industry professionals from Asmodee, Flat River Group, Exploding Kittens nominated for 2024 Wonder Women Awards

A string of board game industry professionals are in the running for this year’s Wonder Woman Awards, which looks to recognise exceptional women executives in the toy, licensing and entertainment sectors.

Board game distributor Flat River Group’s senior marketing manager Danni Loe is in the running for the marketing category award, facing competition from execs at big-name companies including Hasbro, Mattel and The Lego Group.

Loe has been in the board games industry for a decade across multiple marketing roles, and was also previously communications manager at The Game Manufacturer’s Association.

She hosts the consistently excellent board game industry business and marketing podcast Unboxed alongside Keymaster Games product manager Jennifer Graham-Macht, and earlier this year helped launch the Tabletop Gaming Learning Community, a support initiative aimed at helping women who work in, or want to work in, tabletop gaming learn from and champion each other.

TLC is part of Women in Toys, Licensing & Entertainment (WIT), the non-profit advocacy group for the advancement of women which runs the Wonder Woman Awards.

Birgitte Bülow, the co-founder and CEO of Asmodee-owned trivia and part games specialist Bezzerwizzer Studio, is nominated in the Brand Franchise category, while Exploding Kittens trio Kendra Vaughan, Carol Mertz and Kellee Vopelak and nominated for the Advocate For Change, Designer/Inventor – Corporate and Rising Leader: <500 Employees awards respectively.

Asmodee distribution-side senior exec Marjolein Lubberman is a contender for the Unsung Hero: >500 Employees category. Lubberman was CEO and co-founder of Enigma Distribution Benelux, which was bought by Asmodee in 2016.

Elsewhere in the awards Taylor Herndon, who launched the Board to Beers board game bar in Memphis, Tennessee in the teeth of the pandemic in 2020, is up for Small Business Owner of the Year.

WIT said this year’s theme, Celebrating Wonder Women Everywhere, “pays tribute to the trailblazing women who not only inspire and lead throughout our industry, but also uplift the talent and contributions of those around them”.

Voting is open to WiT members from July 15 to August 2, with winners announced at the Wonder Women Awards Gala on September 13.