Nickelodeon/MTVN Kids and Family Group has promoted 11-year Nick veteran Mark Taylor to senior VP and general manager of Nickelodeon Animation Studio. Reporting to Brown Johnson, president of animation, and Alison Dexter, exec VP of production, Taylor will be responsible for overseeing the day-to-day operations of Nickelodeon’s Burbank Animation Studio
In his expanded role, Taylor will oversee production on all current Nicktoon series, including SpongeBob SquarePants, The Fairly Oddparents, Go Diego Go, Dora the Explorer and Ni Hao Kai-Lan, as well as such upcoming shows as The Mighty B! from co-creator Amy Pohler (Saturday Night Live). During his tenure with the network, he has been a driving force behind the expansion of the CG production unit, tripling the size of the in-house CG staff and partnering with companies throughout the world to bring state-of-the-art animation to Nick viewers. This year, the studio expects to deliver almost 30 hours of CG animation, including the upcoming series The Penguins of Madagascar, which is being produced in partnership with DreamWorks Animation.
Taylor joined Nickelodeon as VP and general manager in 1997, and was a key member of the team responsible for the vision and design behind the 72,000 square foot studio, which celebrated its 10th anniversary in March. He was also responsible for creating Nick University, an annex program for studio employees offering courses in everything from management training to foreign languages and advanced art classes. He came to Nickelodeon from Columbia/TriStar Television, where he served as VP of animation production.
