David Steward II’s Lion Forge Animation studio (Academy Award-winning Hair Love) is expanding its leadership team as the company, known for championing diversity, authenticity, and underrepresented communities, continues to scale production and development activity in just its third year.
Two-time Emmy-award winning animation director and creative visionary Saxton Moore has been promoted to Vice President of Production for Lion Forge Animation after joining and serving as Executive Creative Director for the last year. Moore has worked with notable animation and entertainment companies throughout his career, including Netflix, Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Sesame Street, FUSEtv, A+E, and brings over 20-years of experience to the role.
Neely Shamam has been hired to serve as the studio’s Vice President of Development. Shamam is an experienced creative executive with over 15 years of developing, producing, and programming quality content for an array of platforms and networks. Shamam has worked in creative leadership roles at Disney and Maker Studios, Zone TV, and Ficto.
In addition to the hiring of Saxton and Neely, the company is adding several director and producer level talent to further enhance its production and development capabilities. Carl Reed, Lion Forge Animation’s Chief Creative Officer will be shifting his focus to providing executive producer services and focusing his work with Lion Forge Animation on several key projects.
Lion Forge Animation founder David Steward II said, “Our incredible growth trajectory can be attributed, in large part, to the best-in-class team executing our distinct vision. Saxton is an instinctive leader with tremendous creative acumen and a powerful ability to deliver. Equally, Neely is an executive producer with a penchant for unique storytelling and a strategic eye for talent and material that translates to great TV series, movies, and digital properties.”
Lion Forge Animation sits within Steward II’s holding company Polarity, a diversified global media company with a mission to bring authentic content to a diverse global audience. To create a richer content experience and offering, the company believes in the value of embracing diversity and highlighting previously unheard voices, as well as new and emerging views and voices. The Polarity portfolio includes Illustrated Syndicate and Magnetic Press, as well as Oni-Lion Forge Publishing Group.
In the company’s two and a half years of operation, Lion Forge Animation has been generating significant momentum.
“The company built several high-profile content partnerships (Imagine Kids + Family, BRON, Bento Box and Polygram among them), delivered on multiple productions (the latest with Disney), has established key entertainment industry alliances, and has scaled the IP portfolio,” said Edward Hamati, President of Polarity. “The latest leadership and subsequent team hires complement and enhance the company’s profile and capabilities. We are excited and have some upcoming announcements which we think the industry will find compelling.”
With Polarity, David Steward II added “Authenticity matters across Polarity’s portfolio of companies. Our expanding leadership teams are taking the reins of brands with a singular, unique mandate to deliver diverse, authentic content representing underserved cultures, communities, voices and groups. We’re proud of what the teams are accomplishing and thrilled as Lion Forge Animation enters an exciting growth phase.”
About lion Forge Animation
Lion Forge Animation is a leading black-owned, full-service animation studio that sources, acquires, develops, and produces authentic diverse content for global distribution. Founded in 2019, LFA is a self-financed flexible platform with an established content library. LFA is well-positioned and uniquely equipped to create, drive, and deliver genuine, diverse stories to meet increasing audience demand fuelled by broad-based content consumption and social forces.
A recognized leader in bringing authentic content focusing on underrepresented voices and experiences to worldwide audiences, the studio was behind the Academy Award winning, culturally resonating short, Hair Love, directed by Matthew A. Cherry, and is one of the only Black-owned animation studios in the world and is unmatched in size and scale. It is the only Black-owned animation studio with an Oscar.
Lion Forge Animation continues to expand its IP portfolio with the development and production of TV series and feature films. Upcoming projects include a Hair Love spinoff series (Young Love) for HBO Max; an animated series based on Cedella Marley’s picture book Marley and the Family Band; the animated series Heiress with BRON; Rise Up, Sing Out, executive produced by Grammy-winning artists Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter and Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, for Disney; multiple projects with Imagine Kids + Family including Chippy Hood, First Step, and Bugtron; and new series based on the multiple award-winning Excerpts from an Unknown Guidebook book series, alongside Folktellers Studios.
The company recently inked a deal with Scott 34 Racing, creating Wendell Scott Ventures to introduce the groundbreaking life and legacy of Wendell Scott, NASCAR’s first Black racer and team owner, to audiences through films, TV series, docu-series, digital content, games, and more through an extensive multi-platform engagement.
Lion Forge Animation is represented by Activist Artists Management.
Find out more about Lion Forge Animation at: www.lionforgeanimation.com
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