Graham ’95 Offers New Ways for Fans to Show Their Passions

Do you have a collectible of Pam and Jim from “The Office” in your office? Have you bought a Minecraft toy or a Paddington Bear for your child? Then you probably have Bill Graham ’95 to thank for that purchase.

Graham is the Chief Marketing Officer for PhatMojo, a Los Angeles-based toy company that handles several well-known properties: The Office, Bendy, and Paddington Bear among them. Graham, a partner in the company, handles marketing, brand evaluation, licensing, and communications globally. 

It has been an interesting two decades since Graham returned from a post-graduate service year in Ecuador. He started his career working in accessories, where he first learned the value of brand partnerships. From there, he went to the Cartoon Network, working within their consumer products group. “We began working on stuff with toys and learning more about the brands in that field,” he says. “I delved a bit deeper into understanding entertainment and how that works with product development.” 

His work there caught the eye of Jazwares, another toy company, which created a job for him as the popular video game “Minecraft” was springing onto the scene. They started licensing Minecraft items and it “blew the company up from a revenue standpoint,” Graham says. “That got us a lot of visibility.”

From there, Graham became a partner at Phatmojo, which went from being a start-up company five years ago to being a complete player in the industry. The company works with several major retail stores, “fighting for shelf space at GameStop, Target, Walmart; all major accounts where kids’ toys and collectibles are sold,” says Graham. “We are basically finding brands that will work well in these spaces and signing agreements.”

While a TV show or movie might seem like the best bet for a company to make a profit, there is a huge upside to being in the gaming industry. “There are titles that streak really strongly very quickly and build a massive audience,” says Graham. “There is definitely a stock market value to it. These properties can always break one way or the other.”

The company has been smart about their agreements. “It is harder to hide in plain sight anymore,” Graham says. “As a small, newer company, you have to keep your wits about you to outmaneuver companies with larger war chests. We have a good track record of finding and betting on properties we believe are undervalued.”

Graham, who studied business at Fordham University, may not have learned the specifics of marketing for a toy company in a high school class, but he believes that his Prep education has impacted him. “I think of it as the general fabric of life; it becomes a part of you and that carries forward,” he says. “The cumulative effect is really undeniable.”

Two other memories of his Prep experience Graham holds are of the Jesuits and his classmates. “It’s hard to find a more interesting or intelligent group of people on the planet and the Prep experience is timed perfectly for such an introduction,” he says. “As for the Class of 1995, I'm likely not alone in feeling this way, but I loved my class. It was an incredibly talented, great group of guys. I feel really lucky to have been a part of it.”

The Prep was one of the unofficial reasons Graham recently moved back to the Philadelphia area. “I always wanted to find a way back home,” he says of his and his family’s move to Gladwyn. He and his wife Ann-Marie have two young children, and the possibility that his son might also attend the Prep “was always something in my mind’s eye. I hope he gets to share that experience.”
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