Vancouver, BC — January 2020: Kinzoo is pleased to announce that Björn Jeffery is joining the company’s Board of Directors. Jeffery is the co-founder and former CEO of Toca Boca, the award-winning play studio that creates digital toys for children.
Jeffery co-founded Toca Boca, a kids media company, and took it from 0 to 200,000,000+ downloads and $15m in revenue. During his tenure as CEO, he established a world-class kids brand in seven years that won countless industry awards and outperformed competitors like PBS, Nickelodeon and Sesame Street. He oversaw strategy for multi-million dollar partnerships with companies like Amazon, Target, and Microsoft, and led the company’s acquisition by Spin Master and managed the integration in 2016 and 2017.
Today, Jeffery is an entrepreneur and strategic advisor in media and technology. His main interest and driver is to identify and understand the near future in the industry. He is skilled at seeing the underlying systems that control why things happen and creating strategies that work with them. He currently specializes in the media and gaming market—with a particular focus on kids and family entertainment. Additionally, he is also a board member for Rovio Entertainment Corporation and Acast, and a Contributing Technology Analyst for the Swedish Business Daily. Jeffery also co-founded Enjo, which was acquired by KRY in 2019.
Since its inception, Kinzoo has enrolled individuals from diverse areas of expertise to help build the best possible app for kids and their parents. The company first sought out Jeffery’s expertise as a member of the advisory board, which he joined January 2020. Now, he is officially joining Kinzoo’s Board of Directors.
“I’m both happy and honored to be joining Kinzoo’s Board of Directors,” says Jeffery. “What I’ve been most impressed by with Kinzoo is their clarity of vision. It combines a sound business plan with the utmost respect for the privacy and well-being of kids and families. This is an unusual and encouraging combination that I look forward to contributing to. Kinzoo is a breath of fresh air in a space where there’s so much more innovation to uncover.”
“Björn has a proven track record for creating delightful, successful technology products for kids—a segment of the market that is notoriously hard to enter,” says Sean Herman, CEO of Kinzoo. “We’re thrilled to welcome him to our Board of Directors and have no doubt that his insights and expertise will help establish Kinzoo as the most trusted brand for incorporating technology into our kids lives.”
Since its inception, Kinzoo has enrolled individuals from diverse areas of expertise to help build the best possible app for children. The company’s advisors include Dr. Renae Beaumont is a child psychologist at Cornell University and creator of the Secret Agent Society, a technology that helps children on the autism scale develop emotional and social intelligence. Darren Laur is a retired staff sergeant who is now a digital literacy advocate and educator. He has presented to more than 460,000 elementary and high school students across Canada and the US. And, Howard Donaldson is the former CFO at Electronic Arts Canada and a former VP at Disney Interactive.
ABOUT KINZOO
Kinzoo brings kids, parents and extended family together to share experiences and make memories that wouldn’t otherwise exist. They are building a safe introduction to technology that gives kids a constructive, skill-building outlet to connect with loved ones, explore their creativity and cultivate new interests. Their first product is a private messenger for kids ages 6 and up—plus the whole family, too! With this family-friendly app, your data is yours, profiles are not publicly searchable and parents approve all contacts.
