French prodco Gaumont has tapped Courtney Arumugam to be its first VP of creative development, animation and family in the UK. Based in London, Arumugam has been working on producing a wide range of content for the European market since she started the position in April.

Before joining Gaumont, she was the senior creative executive of children’s content at London-based Bright Agency. At the publisher, Arumugam launched an in-house film and TV division to develop projects based on the company’s library. She has previously also served as Mattel’s senior executive of creative and content development, overseeing original and existing IP and developing animated and live-action content for two to 12s. She also worked in commissioning and production for Channel 4, BBC and Fremantle Media. In her new role, she will report to the Gaumont’s SVP of creative development, animation and family Terry Kalagian.

Arumugam’s hire is part of Gaumont efforts to ramp up its development and production of animated and family IPs to expand its global reach. The company kicked off those efforts by upping Kalagian to SVP of creative development and hiring Kimberly Dennison as the VP of creative development, animation and family in the US.

The prodco also grew its global distribution and co-productions team this past December with several new additions. Ben Bishop, former sales director for Canadian prodco eOne joined as VP of TV distribution for APAC, while Alexis Barqueiro was promoted to VP of TV co-productions and acquisitions.