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LOS ANGELES, USA // Shelly Gillyard is the Vice President of UCAN Marketing. In her current role, she leads the team creating marketing campaigns for some of Netflix’s most popular titles such as One Piece, Bridgerton, Love Is Blind, Squid Game The Challenge, Outer Banks, Stranger Things, Wednesday, Griselda, 3 Body Problem and more. Shelly has also been integral in overseeing the marketing for Netflix is A Joke Festival and the virtual five day fan event for Geeked Week.

Since Gillyard began leading the team, in 2023 Netflix received their first Silver Lion Award at Cannes for the Wednesday Hates Marketing Campaign. Additionally, Netflix won the prestigious Clio Awards for Television / Streaming Network of the Year Award, consecutively in 2022 and 2023 and the Grand Clio for the Integrated Campaign for Wednesday and Stranger Things.

Previously, she was at Nike as the Senior Director Catalyst Marketing North American for Nike Inc based in Los Angeles, Calif. In this position, Sumpter Gillyard oversaw all influencer relationships across North America including the partnership with Travis Scott, Olivia Kim, Angela Davis and Kendrick Lamar. Gillyard is at the forefront of relationships with external influencers and collaborators including, development of long-term strategic plans and driving the best practices around partnerships to drive high standard collaborations for the Nike brand.

In 2020 Sumpter Gillyard was instrumental in producing the largest influencer marketing event in Nike history with Forum 2020. Over 60 influencers from around the globe attended the New York event including Travis Scott, Drake, Rosalia, Kendrick Lamar and Virgil Abloh.

In 2018 Sumpter Gillyard departed the Nickelodeon Group in her final roles as Executive Vice President, Talent, Music and Events, overseeing talent relations across all content including series, live TV events, music programming for all brands within the Nickelodeon portfolio.

Sumpter Gillyard was a driving force in creating content and assembling the all-star line ups serving as Executive Producer, for the network’s annual star-studded live TV events, including the Kids’ Choice Awards, Kids’ Choice Sports and Nickelodeon HALO Awards. She has brought in talent like John Cena, Blake Shelton, Justin Timberlake, Nick Jonas, Will Smith, Dwayne Johnson, and Mark Wahlberg to host Kids’ Choice Awards. She also forged a relationship with Michael Strahan and SMAC Ent. to serve as executive producer of Kid’ Choice Sports, building a roster of sports superstars who want to work with Nickelodeon, including Seattle Seahawks’ Super Bowl-winning quarterback Russell Wilson as host and Kobe Bryant, who was famously slimed in gold in 2016. Sumpter Gillyard also oversaw the content and curation of talent for Nick’s annual prosocial-themed concert event, the HALO Awards, which most recently in 2017 was hosted by Nick Cannon and featured performances by Kelly Clarkson, Jason Derulo, Hailee Steinfeld, Zedd, Alessia Cara and Daya.

Sumpter Gillyard has worked most of the last decade to broaden Nickelodeon’s relationships within the creative community; built meaningful partnerships in the worlds of film, music, TV and sports; and mined for brand-new talent for content creation including a first look deal with Kevin Hart and his Heartbeat Productions for a scripted Live Action series.

As a pop culture guru, Sumpter Gillyard is aware of the power of social media stars and secured a 360 deal with social media sensation JoJo Siwa. Under Sumpter Gillyard’s management, Jojo Siwa tripled her social media following and built a massive business inclusive of content, consumer products, music and touring.

Sumpter Gillyard’s role in developing talent for new and current live-action series has helped yield hit shows like the top-rated Dude Perfect, Keep It Spotless, Executive Produced by John Cena, All In with Cam Newton, and scripted series Henry Danger, The Thundermans, and Nicky, Ricky, Dicky & Dawn.

Prior to this promotion, Sumpter Gillyard served as network’s Senior Vice President of Talent. She first joined the Nickelodeon Talent Department as a manager in 1997 and has held several roles throughout her tenure. Prior to joining Nick, she was Director of Publicity for The Steven Rifkind Company where she was responsible for coordinating publicity and promotional efforts for feature films including MGM’s Hoodlum, Touchstone’s The 6th Man and Orion’s 8 Heads In A Duffle Bag. She began her career at Cathcart Public Relations as an Account Executive where she managed accounts for MCA, Virgin, Loud Records, Columbia Records and Nickelodeon, among others.

Sumpter Gillyard is a graduate of California State University, Northridge with a BA in Radio and Television Production.