Women Innovators of Play

Just recently, on September 12th, Hasbro held their first Women Innovators of Play virtual global event, which saw talks from key industry players like Kim Boyd, head of toy at Hasbro, Azhele Wade, founder of The Toy Coach, Cynthia Williams, president of Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro Gaming, game designer Elizabeth Hargrave, actor, director and entrepreneur Aisha Tyler, and many more! The night also kicked off the Women Innovators of Play Challenge, which is still open for submissions until October 12th, 2023. If you are an inventor or team leader in the toy industry who identifies as a woman, you have the opportunity to win $10,000, an all expenses paid trip to Hasbro HQ in Rhode Island, and a mentorship session with one of Hasbro’s top women leaders, so don’t miss the submission deadline! Find out all the details at: spark.hasbro.com/womeninnovators

This event was the brainchild of Tanya Thompson, Senior Director of Inventor Relations and Innovation at Hasbro Gaming. She has been at Hasbro since 2017, and in that time, she has cemented herself as an invaluable member of the community, not only within Hasbro, but in the industry at large. We sat down with Tanya Thompson to ask her about how the Women Innovators of Play event came to be, and to try and get to know her, the mind behind it all. What are her favorite games? What makes an idea for a game truly stand out? find out all of this and more in this exclusive interview!

1. How long has Hasbro Women Innovators of Play been in the works? Please tell us about the journey from inception to greenlight and planning.

We’ve always been interested in supporting the community of women innovators in the toy and game industry. Last year Kim Boyd, Head of Toy at Hasbro, asked me if given the chance, what else would we do. So I pitched the Women Innovators of Play initiative and it was green lit this spring. I’m very thankful to Kim for her support. Then in the spring, the real work began and we haven’t looked back. There is a core committee of about 15 people who are making this happen from across multiple functions at Hasbro. I’m thankful that when we needed something done, people have been very supportive and generously volunteered their time to bring this to fruition.

What does this event mean to you personally, and why are events that elevate and award women in the industry so critical, even now?

As a minority woman myself, I know what it means to get support along your journey from others and how pivotal it can be. I’ll never forget when I first arrived at Hasbro, I met one of the top woman executives and she said to me, “My door is always open if you want to connect.” So I took her up on that. It always meant a lot to me that she took valuable time out of her very busy day to support me. So now, six and a half years later, it is our hope that the Women Innovators of Play event and Challenge will help other women. It’s important now because there is a lack of women innovators in the industry, and I’m thrilled that Hasbro wants to do something about that.

You were named Inventor Relations Executive of the Year in 2022 by Mojo Nation, huge congrats! What aspects of how you do business naturally distinguished you for this honor?

Thank you! I was extremely honored to be given that award. I’ll never forget when they called my name amongst my peers and how everyone cheered. It really meant a lot to me. I’m not sure why exactly Mojo distinguished me with this honor, but I can tell you that I really care about how I do business and that I am always striving to do the best I can for both Hasbro and for our inventors. It’s a fine line we walk in Inventor Relations, because we work for our company but we also hold our relationships with our inventors in the highest regard. So I’m always working at being a good advocate and to do the right and fair thing.

What are the most important factors you look for to determine when an idea is truly special?

For the Women Innovators of Play Challenge, the criteria is based on several factors: innovation, fun factor & playability, design & aesthetics, mass marketability, and manufacturability.

What are some of your all-time personal favorite board games?

I get asked this question a lot. My answer is always that it depends on who else is playing. If I’m playing against just one other person and they want a skill and action game, I love to play Foosketball. If I’m playing with a group of people who want to work together to escape and solve a mystery, I love to play one of the Clue Escape games. If I’m playing with a group of friends, I love Sun Moon Rising, which is a party game where you see if your astrological sign knows you better than your friends do. I could go on and on. I love to play games a lot!

Tell us about some new and exciting Hasbro Gaming offerings that you want to boost!

We’re really excited about Twister Air, which we just launched. In this game, you take the moves from the classic Twister mat to the screen! It’s an appenabled Twister game where, as the music plays, players move their body to match the bands on their wrists and ankles to the colored spots on the screen. Another one is Risk Strike. It’s a card game version of classic Risk, which only takes about 15 minutes to play.