Senior Management.
Jeremy Hobbs, Chairman | Meryl Holland, Chief Creative Officer | Leslie Boyd-Bradley, VP Sales
His parents ran a management and public policy business where Jeremy worked to pay his way through a Jesuit high school, then later Pomona College.
Of course, hard work isn’t always enough. Jeremy saw this firsthand when his parents divorced, leaving his mother, a special education teacher, financially unstable. This left an indelible impression and later became a personal mission: to help women find strength and independence on their own, whatever the circumstances.
His passion for social justice deepened during his years at the University of Chicago Law School. He began working for Marshall Patner, a civil rights and cause-related lawyer well-know in Chicago. After graduating cum laude and as an editor of the Law Review, he joined Patner’s firm full-time. He quickly developed a specialty in representing dozens of women seeking cancer treatments whose insurance companies were declining coverage.
The next stop was at Krasnow, Sanberg, Cornblath and Hobbs, a startup that provided legal services to non-profits and small, family-owned businesses. He became Chairman of Stop AIDS Chicago, where he was introduced to the at-home party business model, in this instance with a focus on awareness and education.
One of his clients was Allen D. Petersen, then majority owner, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of American Tools Cos. Inc, the largest privately held hand tool and power tool accessories company in the world. Soon Jeremy was his right-hand for strategic direction and acquisitions, and later the co-architect of its complex sale to Newell Rubbermaid. By then, the company had grown from $45M to $500M in sales.
Soon after, Jeremy and Allen formed Draupnir, LLC, a holding and operating company based in Chicago. Between 2002 and 2005, Draupnir invested in 15 business enterprises, including EOS, Inc., a holding company that owned Discovery Toys. In 2005, Jeremy Hobbs became Draupnir CEO, and then sole owner upon Mr. Peterson’s passing.
With a new chapter came new focus on a streamlined portfolio of fewer businesses of greatest interest. Particularly Discovery Toys, which he’d been evaluating for sometime. As the child, brother and nephew of educators, Jeremy knew that Discovery Toys was a natural fit for his life-long passion(s) for quality education and encouraging economic self-sufficiency. The needs at Discovery Toys were clear: a radical rebirth from product to compensation to digital to operations. And that was just the beginning. Taking the reins just in 2008, he applied his considered observations into swift action, ready to make use of the potential of the company’s unique position alongside current market and cultural forces. Since then, Jeremy and his assembled teams of experts and consultants have begun the work of making Discovery Toys game-changing for the category and life-changing for children, families and educators.
When not immersed in Discovery Toys, Jeremy continues to balance his considerable energies on Draupnir’s other concerns as well as several charities and private foundations in his hometown of Chicago.
Meryl Holland, Chief Creative Officer
Her background is a synchronistic blend of the worlds of retail and manufacturing, product development, sales and marketing. Extensive experience in business planning and licensing helps her identify success potential and forge strategic alliances to maximize reward, gain and profit. She’s done precisely that for established global brands and franchises including Mattel, Fox, LEGO, Time Inc., NBC, Warner Bros., The Cheesecake Factory, Revale Skin beauty, among many others.
Known throughout her career as a keen business and brand builder, Meryl defined a new audience and re-energized the La Costa Spa products company; as well as defined new businesses and opportunities while beginning her tenured career with Bloomingdale’s New York.
Prior to opening her own firm in 1994, Meryl served as Senior Vice President of Worldwide Licensing for Barbie Consumer Products for Mattel, Inc. Not content to rest on Barbie’s laurels, she developed innovative new product and licensing strategies that led to significant growth and helped bring Barbie’s worldwide sales past $1 billion. She introduced the first Barbie Boutiques at retail to great success and spearheaded the icon’s first foray into video entertainment, bringing Barbie the doll to life for the first time in 3-D animation.
Her integrated view of retail and marketing possibilities, a learned and intuitive knowledge of the toy, beauty, and lifestyle industries, and her ability to build successful long-term alliances led her to a partnership with Discovery Toys.
Since summer 2008, her past experiences have been combined with the literal thrill of Discovery. Toys, moms, education, children, and giving back—are all personal passions of hers. Her current mission is to help moms, families and children see the promise of Discovery Toys and, at the same time, themselves, as she revives the brand’s equity and potential. It is the perfect fusion of her core values and beliefs.
Meryl graduated from Georgetown University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Art History. Meryl is a founding member of the Board of Directors for the Children Affected by AIDS Foundation (CAAF) and is a consultant to the Santa Monica — Malibu Education Foundation. She is the Governing Board parent representative for Canyon Charter School and is also a member of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), LA, and an avid contemporary art collector.She resides in Santa Monica, California with her husband, Richard, three children — Evan, Owen and Scotty (twin boy and girl), and Frida, the family dog.
Leslie Boyd-Bradley, Vice President of Sales
Leslie had the industry in her heart from a tender, young age, having watched and worked with her parents to build an incredible business and career with Tupperware®. That ignited a personal desire to go down the entrepreneurial path. She followed in her parents’ footsteps by building her own business with Tupperware, and achieving the corporate level of Vice President leading the #1 region in the
