Unanico appoints LA-based CEO

Unanico Group, producer of recent Netflix kids’ original Buddi, has appointed an LA-based development and production executive as its producer and CEO.

Leanne Preston

Leanne Preston will lead Unanico’s content development, production and global partnership strategies, working out of LA as London-based Unanico expands to the US.

Preston brings 14 years of experience developing and producing original content such as House of Anubis, George of the Jungle and Ella Bella Bingo for children. She has worked with companies such as Nickelodeon, DreamWorks Classics, Toonmax, CCTV and Red Kite.

More recently, Preston worked non-exclusively with Chinese producer Left Pocket Studio as director of business, content and development and LA- and New York-based Citizen Skull Productions as head of production development for animation.

At the latter, Preston worked on Nickelodeon’s Lego City Adventures, Youku’s preschool series Emmy & GooRoo and Tencent’s Mini Mind Warriors.

The exec also had a stint as director of animation development for production at Gaumont Animation in the US.

Founded in 2009 by producer Paul Laikin and creative director Jason Jameson, Unanico Group creates original 2D, 3D and CGI animation, with a focus on developing and producing in-house IP. It also co-develops and coproduces animated IP from selected partners.

Its previous projects include One Night in Hell, an animated short film in collaboration with Queen guitarist Brian May; the All Dead, All Dead Queen music video; and the animation on all three seasons of CBeebies show Apple Tree House.

Netflix released preschool series Buddi, executive produced by Paw Patrol and Bob the Builder creator Keith Chapman, in March.

Unanico is currently in development on multiple other original series and feature films and has industry partnerships in Japan and in China.

In the latter, the company has distributed Apple Tree House and Koala Brothers to platforms such as Tencent Video, Mango TV and Jetson Huashi, and produced Buddi with Motion Magic of Shanghai Media Group.