Ken Markman

Ken Markman is the managing partner and CEO of KKM Global Brand Strategies, which was launched in 1998.

Markman’s wide-range of expertise crosses the boundaries of Trademark Brand Strategies, Marketing Entertainment, Advertising and Licensing Consumer Products. He has served in senior management positions at Universal Pictures, 20th Century Fox, MTM Entertainment, Mattel, J. Walter Thompson USA and Dino De Laurentiis Corporation along the way, creating the marketing campaigns for many successful films including, “The Empire Strikes Back”, “E.T.”, “Scarface,” and “Sophie’s Choice.”

He has generated brand licensing revenue in excess of $2 billion, marketed over 450 motion pictures and hundreds of hours of television programming, and received numerous awards for both his corporate design programs and advertising campaigns.

Markman is a lecturer at USC’s graduate Marshall School’s school of business, USC’s Film School and Loyola Marymount University. He is an industry spokesperson, author of industry articles, and instructor of two UCLA courses. “Marketing Entertainment: Strategies for the Global Marketplace” and “Global Business Strategies for the 21st Century”. He is frequently a keynote speaker on Brand strategies at international, business, legal and licensing conferences.

He is widely published in domestic and international publications and legal journals. For ten years Markman has written, compiled and edited the definitive academic reader, Entertainment Marketing and Global Strategies from UCLA Publishing, for Entertainment Studies and Performing Arts.

Markman is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, the Academy’s Animated Motion Picture Committee and UCLA’s Advisory Board for Entertainment, Business and Management. He also serves on the advisory board of The Indian Film Festival and was an Officer and Director of the Board of the Licensing Industry Merchandisers Association (LIMA), The Los Angeles Advertising Club, the Film Information Council and an expert witness in matters of intellectual property.

He holds a B.S. in Education with a major in English and Speech from the University of Dayton, where he extended his studies to include Communication and Film and Filmmaking at the New School in New York.

Currently, Markman is writing a book titled, BrandCulture: From Batman and Barbie to Bond and Beyond…How brands and their messages are setting a New Cultural Agenda.