Beyond Rights hires from Aardman, Banijay Rights to bolster distribution team

London-based distributor Beyond Rights has appointed Kate Stevenson and Sylvia Okyere to its distribution team and promoted existing execs Joanna Rowley and Lenneke de Jong.

Kate Stevenson

Stevenson will join Beyond Rights in June as VP of sales, after completing a fixed-term contract at animation studio Aardman where she has been senior sales manager since January.

Prior to Aardman, Stevenson spent 10 years at Twentieth Century Fox, most recently as sales director for the UK, Ireland, the Nordics, the Netherlands, the Baltics and Russia. She started her career as an assistant at Sky in 2007.

As VP of sales at Beyond Rights, Stevenson will cover France, CEE, the Middle East and Africa.

Okyere, meanwhile, takes up the role of sales support executive at Beyond Rights. She joins from Banijay Rights where she was sales coordinator, a role she carried over from Endemol Shine Group where she started working in 2017 before it was integrated into Banijay.

Rowley has been promoted to senior VP of sales for the UK, Nordics and Italy just a few weeks after joining the company as VP.

Prior to that appointment on May 1, Rowley had been a part-time consultant for Beyond for three months, before which she was freelancing as a sales consultant. She previously worked at Fox Networks Group Content Distribution for eight years.

Finally, de Jong has been promoted to senior VP of sales for Germany, Benelux, Iberia and Latin America. She had held the role of VP for those territories since 2020, before which she worked at companies including TCB Media Rights, DCD Rights and Endemol.

Each of the executives reports to Sarah Bickley, who became Beyond’s head of sales in April.