About AAL Licensing
AAL was founded fifteen years ago to give brands big-agency licensing, marketing and business development with the attention and connections of senior executives. Our partners have held leadership roles at IMG, Marvel Entertainment, Universal Studios, NASCAR, Schleich and VF Corporation, and across their careers have generated billions in new revenue for brands, studios, athletes and personalities. Today, AAL is a global alliance of specialists managing every stage of a brand’s growth.
Tim Rothwell
Tim founded AAL 15 years ago to give brands big-agency experience with the attention of a boutique firm. A seasoned dealmaker, he leads the agency’s strategy and new business, with relationships across brand owners, licensees and retailers worldwide. Under his leadership, AAL has secured thousands of licensing agreements and generated millions in retail sales across its portfolio of brands.
Before forming AAL, Tim was EVP and Co-Managing Director of IMG’s worldwide licensing and consumer products division, where he significantly expanded the business by bringing on new corporate, celebrity and media brands. As President of Marvel Entertainment Worldwide Consumer Products, he ran a $5B licensing business, helped engineer franchise deals with Hasbro, Activision and Microsoft, and tripled the business in three years. As SVP of Consumer Products at Universal Studios, he led licensing for Jurassic Park and helped build a $1B global business.
Don Rothwell
Don joined AAL as a partner in 2015. Working alongside Tim, he builds new business and oversees partner relationships and program operations across the portfolio, drawing on deep experience in sales, licensing, finance and operations. He also leads AAL’s work representing manufacturers seeking licenses, a side of the business he knows firsthand.
Before joining AAL, Don was EVP for North and South America at Schleich, where he expanded distribution to Walmart, Target, Amazon and Barnes & Noble and led licensing partnerships with Warner Bros./DC Comics and Peanuts Worldwide. As NASCAR’s Managing Director of Licensing Business Development and Retail, he helped drive licensing to record levels and partnered with Walmart on the largest in-store NASCAR promotion. He also led sales at Motorsports Authentics, NASCAR’s largest licensee, and began his career at VF Corporation and American Character Classics/Mamiye Brothers.
The Alliance
Founders. Operators. Specialists.
Most licensing agencies are built around licensing executives. AAL is built differently. The Alliance brings together company founders, former C-suite executives and category specialists who have run businesses in the industries our clients want to reach: character and entertainment, lottery and gaming, pet and animal care, food and beverage, wine and spirits, fashion, home and lifestyle. Each member brings a core specialty, and the relationships that come with it, to every program we build, whether a brand needs licensing, brand development or content strategy.
Beyond our own team, AAL works with a network of partner agencies around the world. These partners extend our reach into new territories and help bring deals to the table wherever the opportunity is.
Amy Taylor Boyett
Amy is the founder of Lilium Consulting and an Alliance Partner of AAL, where she leads brand development and marketing across the portfolio and helps bring new brands and partners to the agency. Working in partnership with Tim and Don, she helps brand owners turn strong IP into lasting businesses, from positioning and multi-year brand plans to go-to-market, content and retail strategies. Through Lilium, she has embedded with leadership teams at companies including Lion Forge Entertainment, Rock the Bells and Spiralcute International, building the plans, teams and partnerships that take their brands global.
Before founding Lilium, Amy held senior leadership roles at NBCUniversal, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros.¬†and Turner Broadcasting. At Universal, she launched and scaled the Despicable Me and Minions consumer products program into a multi-billion-dollar global brand, led the relaunch of Jurassic World at retail, and launched Universal Kids Productions. As a partner at White Space Entertainment, she authored long-term franchise plans for Sony Pictures Animation’s Hotel Transylvania and provided advisory work on The Smurfs and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse films. She also led the global expansion of UglyDolls into mass market, building a worldwide agent network and securing more than 100 licensing deals, including a master toy partnership with Hasbro.
Gregg Edgar
Gregg is the founder of ESC Marketing Solutions and an Alliance Partner of AAL, where he leads the agency’s lottery business. He builds new business by presenting AAL’s brands directly to lottery directors across the U.S. and internationally, matching tentpole properties with licensed-ticket programs and promotions that drive sales for lotteries and royalties for brands.
Gregg Edgar is a lottery executive and communications strategist who served as cabinet-level Executive Director of the Arizona State Lottery from 2016 to 2023, leading the organization’s $1.9 billion return to the State and setting sales records in six of eight years. He chaired national committees for the Multi-State Lottery Association and the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries, and secured Powerball partnerships with the NFL, NASCAR, and Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve. Today he advises lottery and gaming organizations through AAL, drawing on twenty years of leading communications and event strategies for clients including the White House, the Pat Tillman Foundation, and M&M Mars.
Jason LeVecke
Jason is the founder of Lincoln, Berry & Co.¬†and an Alliance Partner of AAL. His firm serves brand owners, hospitality groups and national retailers across wine, beer, spirits and ready-to-drink, handling sales and distribution management, retail management, market development, licensing and compliance. At AAL, he brings that expertise to the agency’s wine and spirits licensing and partnerships, opening doors to new brands and licensees across the category.
Before founding Lincoln, Berry & Co., Jason was chief commercial officer at one of the largest independent spirits producers and bottlers in the United States. He was responsible for the P&L on more than $200 million in revenue, grew revenue 25 percent, raised gross margin nine points and opened markets on five continents. Earlier, he founded and led a Carl’s Jr.¬†and Hardee’s franchise organization, growing it from one restaurant into a seven-state business with more than 200 locations, over $150 million in revenue and 4,000 employees. He also served as president of the Carl’s Jr.¬†Franchisee Association, representing more than 1,000 restaurants. A U.S. Marine Corps veteran who served as an Arabic cryptologic linguist, he has served on the boards of the Phoenix Children’s Hospital Foundation and the Veterans Medical Leadership Council.
Harold Postma
Harold is an Alliance Partner of AAL, leading the agency’s business development across Europe. Based in the Netherlands, he helps American brands enter and grow in European markets, with a deep understanding of the commercial and cultural differences from one market to the next and specialist expertise in the pet and animal-care industry.
Before joining AAL, Harold owned and ran Vetericyn Benelux, leading sales, marketing and distribution of animal health and care products to pet retailers, equestrian stores, veterinary practices and agricultural suppliers. He also spent more than a decade as an executive in his family’s business, importing and distributing established American pet, equine and personal-care brands, including Cowboy Magic, Mane ’n Tail and Vetericyn, through European retail and e-commerce channels. He began his career developing furniture from reclaimed and repurposed materials for major retailers, gaining firsthand experience in product development, production and sales.
Shevy Smith
Shevy is an Alliance Partner of AAL, where she leads product development and, like every member of the team, brings new business to the agency. She works between brand owners and licensees to keep programs on schedule and on brand from concept to shelf, and brings deep music and entertainment licensing experience to the agency’s character, lottery and music-driven opportunities.
Shevy was a staff songwriter and composer with Famous Music Publishing in Nashville, working across the recording and touring industries before moving to Los Angeles to build a career in music production for TV and film. Her work has been featured on Bravo, ESPN, ABC and BBC Radio 1, and she earned an Emmy nomination and a Promax Gold Award for ABC/SOAPnet’s “Carly” campaign. In 2019, she co-founded Ultimate Playlist, a first-of-its-kind incentivized music-streaming app, and launched it nationally through a partnership with the Arizona Lottery, running day-to-day operations, the development team and the lottery relationship. She and her co-founder hold a U.S. patent for the tokenization of streaming audio.
Karri Bowman
Karri Bowman is the founder of [coolbandname] and an Alliance Partner of AAL, where she leads creative and marketing services across the portfolio, from brand style guides and sales materials to social content and campaigns, and brings new opportunities to the agency from across her network. Through [coolbandname], she most recently served as marketing and content producer for Taylor Sheridan’s Bosque Ranch, from email to social creative to shooting content on the ground, building the campaign that carried the brand through the Bosque Ranch Live festival.
Before going independent, Karri spent six years as Senior Producer at The Tangent Agency, one of Hollywood’s top entertainment creative shops, where she led A/V campaigns and branded content for 30+ theatrical and streaming titles with NBCUniversal, Warner Bros. and Sony, managing teams of up to 15 designers and strategists. She ran the digital campaign for The Matrix Resurrections, led creative production on social campaigns for Activision Blizzard and Riot Games, including the Silver AVA–winning LCS Championship campaign, and produced Warner Music Group’s HipHop Fifty Retrospective trailer, which earned both a Silver Clio and a Gold AVA. She went on to serve as Head of Marketing & Development at Atomic Venus Media, where her pitch materials secured the official Emily in Paris IP license from Paramount. A writer and producer at heart, Karri brings a storyteller’s eye to every brand she touches.
Michael Gottsegen
A former founding partner of AAL, Michael helped build the agency alongside Tim and continues to work with the team on special projects, bringing new opportunities and more than 30 years in sales, merchandising and entertainment.
Before AAL, Michael was Vice President of Licensing and Retail Development at IMG, managing retail sales for a portfolio of sports, entertainment and celebrity clients. Earlier, he spent nearly a decade at NBCUniversal’s Consumer Products Group, working with filmmakers to develop top-selling products and creating award-winning promotions for franchises including Jurassic Park, E.T., Fast & Furious and Scarface, as well as classics such as The Grinch, The Cat in the Hat, Curious George and Universal Monsters. He began his career as a corporate, entertainment and intellectual property lawyer, and is an inductee of the In-Store Marketing Institute’s Marketing Hall of Fame.