PRESS RELEASE
Publisher and pioneering manga and anime media brand TOKYOPOP has announced that it has hired Owais Farooqui as its Director of Marketing & Sales. The executive is a seasoned professional with over 20 years of experience driving brand growth, awareness, and demand generation.
Farooqui will spearhead efforts to expand the global audience for TOKYOPOP’s portfolio. He will lead all marketing and sales initiatives across publishing, ecommerce, merchandise, and anime promotion with an additional focus on emerging opportunities in the video game arena. Key responsibilities include strategic planning, furthering brand and product awareness, expansion of ecommerce, supporting channels partners and TOKYOPOP distributor Penguin Random House. Farooqui will report to TOKYOPOP COO and Publisher Marc Visnick.
Farooqui previously held senior roles at renowned companies such as King Digital (developers of the globally successful game Candy Crush), Yahoo!, Atari, and Discovery Communications. With a deep passion for manga, anime, gaming, and pop culture, Owais successfully led brand growth and product expansion, building brands and managed high-performing teams while driving the establishment of meaningful connections with fans. His proficiency in data analysis and performance measurement will enable him to optimize effective marketing strategies for TOKYOPOP as the publisher continues to expand its catalog and develop manga, graphic novels, comics and a wide range of original titles based on licensed properties by leading brands such as Disney, Mattel, Ubisoft and more.
“I am very excited to join TOKYOPOP and look forward to leveraging my experience and proficiency in data analysis and performance measurement to optimize impactful marketing strategies,” says Farooqui. “The global growth of manga is impressive and TOKYOPOP’s diverse catalog and commitment to bringing a wide range of titles to readers will continue to make the publisher a favorite among fans and help us reach new segments of the market.”
“We are pleased to welcome Owais Farooqui into the TOKYOPOP family and look forward to leaning on his experience to further TOKYOPOP’s brand and product offerings to existing and new fans around the world,” says Marc Visnick, TOKYOPOP COO and publisher. “His experience and leadership skills, combined with his passion for pop culture, make Owais ideally suited to this leadership role and we look forward to supporting him in his wide-ranging initiatives.”
About TOKYOPOP, Inc.
Founded in 1997, TOKYOPOP brings Asian pop culture to Hollywood and beyond. TOKYOPOP
established the market for manga in North America, introducing the term to the English language in the process, and expanding the market in Germany, publishing thousands of books in both languages, distributing anime and Asian films on home video and television, licensing merchandise to consumer goods and companies, and creating graphic novels of both original content and major IP adaptations. TOKYOPOP’s core values focus on multiculturalism and diversity; aestheticism and artistic integrity; and passionate and positive storytelling. More
information at: https://www.tokyopop.com/.
