Ottawa-based animation studio Mercury Filmworks has expanded its executive leadership team with the recent hire of Julie Pandeya as its chief finance officer and chief operating officer.

The newly-created dual role will have Pandeya (pictured) oversee the company’s finance, business and legal, and studio operations, as well as its talent management and production operations while working with its division heads. She will report to Mercury Filmworks’ founder and CEO Clint Eland, who announced the hire on Tuesday (Oct. 4).

Chief content officer Heath Kenny, who oversees Mercury Filmworks’ original IP production business, will continue to report to Eland, according to a news release.

Pandeya has more than 20 years of financial and operational leadership experience in accounting, M&A, integrations, sales, and services operations under her belt. Prior to joining Mercury Filmworks, she was the CFO and COO of Ottawa-based medical equipment company Shoebox Ltd.

She also served in executive and senior positions at IBM for 13 years, where she worked her way up to the company’s global GBS transformation leader. Before that, she was the director of financial planning and analysis at Cognos for seven years.

Eland said in a statement that the company has been in “an expansive and transformational period over the past two years” and “will be heading into 2023 and beyond with a full slate of television and film projects in development and production.”

He added that with Pandeya on board, he will be able to concentrate more on Mercury Filmworks’ overall global strategy, “which includes long-term goals, partner relationships, and leveraging our strengths to realize our mission of being as renowned for our creativity and storytelling skill as we are for the quality of our animation.”

Mercury Filmworks currently has a number of original series in development both internally and with networks, including Hello, My Name is Octicorn, based on Kevin Diller and Justin Lowe’s book of the same name; and Bloopy Merps, about a robot and an alien who try to transform a lifeless planet into a livable one. The studio acquired the rights to Scott Rothman’s picture book Attack of the Underwear Dragon in March and is in development on an adaptation titled Tales of the Underwear Dragon.

Image courtesy of Mercury Filmworks