Hasbro’s Kim Boyd Talks Women Innovators of Play 2025

The biggest takeaway is that there’s a clear demand for learning and community. From 2023 to 2024, we saw the attendance for our virtual conference double. We had thousands of attendees from all over the world, which was really encouraging and exciting. 

We also had more than 100 submissions for our challenge, which was an increase from the prior year. That speaks volumes to us. It tells us there’s a need and desire, from women in this space, for learning development and the community that we deliver with this initiative.

The biggest difference this year is that we’re going to be streaming on YouTube. In prior years, viewers signed up, and it was a more closed-focused conference. Now, it’s going to be streaming on YouTube, which allows us to open up to a much larger audience. It’ll also live on YouTube so everyone can access the information and view it whenever they want. 

We have a whole new lineup of speakers, which we’re really excited about. In the way we’ve set up the programming, there’s also going to be little snippets called ‘Spark Moments.’ Viewers will have little interstitials of some pretty cool content around leadership, entrepreneurship, and innovation. 

This year is jam-packed with some pretty cool content. Some of the stories this year will focus on leadership, fandom, and the future of play. Eunice Lee, CEO of Scopey, will be speaking on some of those topics. We have a focused section on retail called ‘Shop Talk’, which features incredible leaders from some of our retail partnerships. 

We’re talking about toy design with Elizabeth Hargrave, and we’re publishing one of her games in 2026 called Sanibel. Wild Optimists will join us for a Spark moment; they have an incredible story, and we partner with them across all of our location-based entertainment. They’re going to talk about bringing gaming to life and where you actually get to become the hero of your game.

I’m so excited. What’s incredible about our industry is that it is so diverse in what you get to do in the career path that you have. I certainly have been in this industry my entire career, so I feel extremely fortunate. This role is a new experience for me. I’ve been on the creation side for so long, but the biggest difference now is with licensing and entertainment.

I get to drive with so many incredible partners, and with Hasbro, we have thousands of licensees around the world. I’m able to see that side of the business and even drive women innovators to a broader audience that touches different parts of this industry. Bringing these two groups together is going to be pretty powerful for our organization.

We’re dedicated to fostering inclusivity across the industry, and that includes toys, games, and entertainment. We want all audiences and women from all backgrounds to flourish, and we’re going to continue to drive that messaging. 

I am anticipating that there could be some new opportunities and new initiatives that we start to create. Especially as we think about women innovators, there are possibilities for touching such a broad audience. The entertainment space is just so exciting, and there are so many great leaders that I beleive we can start to bring into the mix.

We have a few initiatives that we’re really excited about focused within that space. Nano-mals is a brand new launch that we have, and it’s already started to hit stores. It captures the best parts of fun and quirkiness with nurturing play. We also have across our Play-Doh brand initiatives. I expect them to be on a lot of girls’ lists, namely Play-Doh Barbie. It introduces a whole new creative play pattern, which we also think will inspire the whole next generation of innovators, designers, and creatives. Of course, we have Furby, which is everybody’s favorite. We have a new DJ Furby that we anticipate to be a hot item this year.

I’d say community drives our work, both with women innovators to play, but also across our business strategy. 2026 will be a milestone year for us. We have a few announcements that will be coming across entertainment, licensing, and video games. We’ll also be expanding to new platforms of play as we’re exploring the potential of A.I. tools that would be able to create even more magical experiences for fans. It should be a pretty good year for Hasbro and hopefully for women innovators as well.