Every day, millions of gamers around the world sit down at the table and crack into a board game with friends and loved ones. And while we maybe, maybe, think about the game’s designer or artist from time to time, it’s rare that we think about all the other people involved in bringing our favorite games to life! That’s why I’m starting Inside Asmodee, an ongoing series of interviews with employees across one of the world’s largest gaming distributors. For our first in the series, I got the chance to chat with Julien Sharp, General Manager, U.S. of Asmodee Group!
Meeting over Zoom before she headed off for a vacation, we spent some time catching up (we’d previously met for coffee while Sharp was in NYC on business several months prior), before diving in.
“I’m really excited to do this with you, Giaco,” she said, because, “it’s kind of an intro to a business that a lot of people don't really even think about.”
For me, the entire point of this article series is to, A. get to know the people who work at a company as big as Asmodee, and B. Find out what exactly it is that they do there, and find out how what they do helps get games to the table.
It’s time we give profiles, and shine a spotlight, on the gaming industry in much the same way other industries are covered in the media.
“There's a person that is making and designing these games,” explained Sharp, “but then there's also a person that wants to play those games, and they can't get to each other and connect without what we do at Asmodee.”
The Role Of A General Manager
But what does it mean when we say Julien Sharp is the General Manager, U.S. of Asmodee Group? “In our company,” she said, “we call this role a Country Manager, but here in the U.S., people might know it more as a GM. It's also kind of akin to a CEO role as it relates to our territory, too.”
Julien explained that the crux of her job relies on maintaining a 360-degree view on the four main pillars of the distribution business: Sales, Commercial, Purchasing, and Logistics.
The Four Pillars of the Business
Sales covers everything from, “mass market to Amazon, and our hobby sales,” Julien explained, “which is the network of over 3,500 local game stores, where people who play games for a hobby go and sit at tables, play and purchase games, and meet their community.
“Our Commercial side includes marketing,” she said, but she explains that Commercial also includes their relationships with the myriad game design studios that create the games that Asmodee distributes. “We have our first-party studios, and then we also have our partner or third-party studios, which are outside companies we don't own, but we distribute their games in the U.S. So our commercial side manages all those relationships and all of our marketing.”
Purchasing includes all of the company’s purchasing and, importantly, reorders. “We have to look at all the forecasts and following trends of how the sales are going,” Sharp said, “to know when we need to reorder. There’s a balance, we have to make sure we don't over order, but also that we don't under order and not order enough for demand and run out early, right? Because that's not fun. When we don't have games to sell, we miss inventory turns, and that's not good.”
"We have to look at all the forecasts ... to know when we need to reorder. There’s a balance, we have to make sure we don't over order, but also that we don't under order...”
Finally, the fourth pillar of the role revolves around Logistics. This includes both the front office, but also an entire distribution facility. “Our facility is hooked onto a very big warehouse,” Sharp said.
"Our facility, when you walk around the warehouse and office one time, is a half mile. So it's quite big, and because of the hobby businesses, year round, we have semi trucks coming in and going all day long. And we have many, many bays that are bringing games into us that we have ordered and picking up games that we have sold out. So it's a full-out logistics operation, and I need to keep my eye on all of those pieces and be able to dive down if there's a problem in them.”
Managing at the GM Level
At this point I joke sarcastically about how simple this all sounds, but Sharp isn’t phased by the workload or the need to oversee four very disparate areas of the business.
“I believe in a strong team,” she emphasized, “and I have VP level people that run all four of those areas, the sales, the commercial, the logistics, and the purchasing. They are experts in their field, and they know their their business. They run their teams, I come in if they need help, or if there’s a big, overarching decision that could impact multiple areas of the business."
But even with leads reporting up to her across these four areas of the business, Sharp prides herself on knowing a little bit about every single part of each area. She said that she needs to understand all aspects of the business so that she can properly staff, “but I also have to know enough to be able to speak to it if I'm needed. So this role is kind of a generalist.”
Sharp said her beginnings, which included owning her own game company (Funnybone Toys, acquired in 2017 by Foxmind), have helped her understand all the different nuances of a gaming company. From stickering her games in a Wisconsin warehouse before Barnes & Noble would put them on shelves, to sending out advanced shipping notices to big box retailers, Sharp's seen it all.
And now, as she takes a more top-down view of the business, one of the things she’s most keen to relate to me is her open-door policy. In what sounds like a truly meeting-heavy workload, Julien excitedly recounts that she has one-on-one meetings with her direct reports weekly, and up to two to three levels down from that every few weeks. She also takes pride in the aforementioned open-door policy, where anyone from the company can come in and pick her brain if the door’s open.
A Day in the Life Inside Asmodee
Next, I really wanted to get into the nitty gritty and find out what an average day is like for Sharp, so she pulled up her work calendar for a random Wednesday a week prior, and walked me through it.
“I had a touch base with marketing,” she began, “the regional manager of all Europe who's running some global programs. I met with our legal team. I did some financial projection scenarios coming up for the next three years with my senior team — we're working on doing our budget for next year. So we’re also figuring out how many games we are going to buy from each studio.”
Suddenly, she lit up, “Oh! And I walked three laps around the building, we're having a walking contest right now. And so I walked three laps, which is a mile and a half. That was pretty fun!” From there, she recounts business reviews with the head of finance, a look at their trade show presence, more one-on-ones, and so on.
“I guess that's the biggest part of what a day is for me,” she explained, “finding any fires that I need to put out - though there's been less and less of that, which is really great, but also keeping an eye on what's going to impact us next year. It's a lot of review, and then I get that pulse from the one on ones that I have.”
What Makes An Asmodee Game Feel Like An Asmodee Game?
Next up, I wanted to dig into the overall approach to game acquisition, design, and marketing to find out if there was a throughline through the games in the Asmodee family.
“Remember, we are a distributor,” Sharp said, “so we distribute our own made games, and we distribute third-party games. And the mentality of the third party is: what is missing from our offerings.”
She explained that for their own games, “what we did internally is divide our games into three verticals, and those verticals are Social, which is kind of party games. Then in the middle we have catch-all tabletop games, games in a box, that aren't necessarily party games. And then we have what's called our lifestyle games."
"And the lifestyle vertical... that's where the secret sauce is in this business."
"And the lifestyle vertical is really interesting, and that's where the secret sauce is in this business. That’s our trading card games, which are like our Star Wars: Unlimited, Altered, games that you can continue to buy new packs of and build your decks and play, and of course our miniatures. Miniatures like Star Wars: Shatterpoint, where you take the the plastic molds out of the box, you have to build your miniature, and then you have to paint your miniature.”
As you can imagine, each of those verticals needs to be marketed totally differently. But as to what makes an Asmodee game feel like an Asmodee game, even when they’re coming from multiple publishers and fit into different verticals, is the quality.
“I will say that I've never seen a company, and I've worked for many, including my own,” Sharp said, “that can create a marriage of what’s outside the box and what’s inside.” She explained that it’s that perfect blend of tight mechanics, high-quality design, and evocative artwork that sets an Asmodee game apart.
“We're in the business of selling games, but it makes it really fun to sell when you know that from the moment you look at it to the moment you open it and play it, that it's got that same quality. And that's what I think sets Asmodee games apart.”
Staying Nimble in a Shifting Business Landscape
Next, I wanted to hear about how she helps steer the sales and other business orgs through an ever-shifting landscape. When gaming trends and fads rise and fall like the tides, how does Asmodee stay afloat?
“This is a constant theme of every single day, every single week, month, and year of this job. What is a fad? What is a trend that has some staying power?” She explained that because of the nature of game production, you can’t really take a chance on a fad.
“You sell a year in advance for what's coming out for the next, so our fall pitches for 2025 are done. You always have to look at what's coming, what's trending, what relationships and partnerships are you doing? It's meeting with the studios. It's meeting with our marketing team, looking at our our data, marketing data, Point Of Sale data, what's selling, what's hot, what's not.”
Sharp stressed, however, that they’re not the designers of the games themselves, but “that doesn't mean we can't impact and ask for things we see. So we are very involved in saying ‘we have a hole here that could be filled,’ and I get very involved in executive-level meetings looking at staffing from a global perspective, all toward making sure that we have the right game at the right time.
“We see the market here in the U.S. and we're stewarding that knowledge and putting it up the chain, that way our game design studios, and our heads of these different verticals can get the right product into the U.S.”
Women in Toys and Giving Back
I also wanted to get a chance to speak to Sharp about her role in Women in Toys, a non-profit organization and global community that champions and advocates for the advancement of women in Toys, Licensing, and Entertainment through leadership, networking, and educational opportunities.
“I’m at a point in my career where I can give back a little more,” Sharp explained, “you know, for the next generation of people coming in. So I was thrilled to be asked last year to sit on the board. I'm on a three-year appointment to the board of Women in Toys. There wasn't as much board-game representation there, so I work with a team of gamer gals that are in different areas trying to build the board game awareness a little more at Women in Toys, which is really exciting.”
"I work with a team of gamer gals that are in different areas trying to build the board game awareness ... at Women in Toys..."
“What I love about WiT, though,” Sharp said, “and that I think is just incredible, is that they have a scholarship program, and I'm on one of the committees that reviews scholarship applicants and helps pick the recipients. The idea of giving a chance for women to get into board games via this scholarship is really exciting. So I love doing that.” Along with Women in Toys, she also helps as part of the judging panel for young inventors with the resource/networking hub People of Play.
Finding Work in the Gaming Industry
To cap off our conversation, I wanted to get Sharp's advice for people looking to get into the gaming industry. “I love this question,” she exclaimed, “and this is really the purpose of what we're doing together in this series.”
She said that while there are more programs than ever to study game design, and even art and illustration for games, that’s not the only way to be in the industry. “If you get your general business degree, look who's working in games right now?” I get her point, people with business degrees are still needed in the industry.
“On my team, there are people in the warehouse that are working in games, there are people in PR that are working in games. There are people working in marketing, people working in sales,” she pauses here for emphasis, and I have to admit I’m whipped up right along with her. “They could be selling pet supplies, they could be selling picture frames, they could be selling furniture, but sales are sales, and they're selling board games.”
“There's a lot of ways to get into games. Our head business analyst, he plays! He built incredible Star Wars: Unlimited decks! He plays every game. There isn’t a game that comes through that he doesn't play. And he's our business analyst, right? So there's a lot of ways to get into the game industry.”
And Sharp emphasized that Asmodee wants their employees to play. “We give a huge discount to employees,” she explained, “I mean, that's the coolest perk you get. I can't believe some of the games I've been able to buy at an incredible discount. So you can come in and be a business person, or work in PR, or marketing, and come in and get into the board game industry and work at getting our games en route to market. We have all the elements of any other business entity, so you don't have to be an expert in board game design to get in to working games.”
What’s Julien Playing?
Before we wrapped up, I had to know what Sharp, with all this access to Asmodee’s gaming library, was playing right now. First, she said she’s totally in love with one of their third-party games which hasn’t hit the U.S. yet, Duck and Cover.
“I love it. It's really, really fun. It's a quick game, just three rounds, and you're trying to get the lowest score. So that's a little counter intuitive.” But Julien has also been really getting into Star Wars: Unlimited and Altered, the newest Asmodee Trading Card Game.
“They couldn't be more different from each other,” Julien says of Unlimited and Altered, “but they're two fabulous games. I went to England for a work trip this summer and went to Star Wars: Unlimited pre-release event at a local game store,” and since then she’s been bit by the Unlimited bug (I’m also afflicted).
“I also really love Altered,” she said. “It's a different philosophy. The art is incredible, and the gameplay is really, really neat. So I hope that people will fall in love with that as it starts to ship out. Those are my picks this year.”
With that, our time had come to an end, and this first chapter of Inside Asmodee comes to a close. Thanks so much to Julien Sharp for taking the time out to talk with us, and give us an insider’s view into what it’s like running so many facets of a gaming company. We’ll continue our series throughout the year with designers, marketing professionals, shipping logistics managers, and more to ensure we’re getting a full 360 view Inside Asmodee!
Giaco Furino joined the TechRaptor team as a Staff Writer in 2019 after searching for a dedicated place to write and talk about Tabletop Games. In 2020, he… More about Giaco
