John Carlaw joins Bandai as national account manager, and Joanne Airey takes on the role of key account manager.

John will join the team this month, bringing with him 17 years of knowledge. His most recent role was senior national account manager at HTI, and previous roles include senior buying manager for boys at Tesco together with retail roles with M&S, Virgin and Woolworths. John will be focusing on growing existing accounts and taking them forward into autumn 2018 and beyond.

Joanne comes with 17 years industry experience, having previously worked as a national account manager for Plum Products and as key account manager for Rainbow Designs. Since joining Bandai earlier this year, Joanne has already opened new accounts and extended distribution within the key account base, and her focus will now be to explore new business opportunities.

Amy Saunders, head of sales, Bandai UK, commented: “We are thrilled to have John and Joanne join the company at this busy and exciting time. With our portfolio growing year on year, it’s essential to have a strong team helping to drive the business forward and the experience that both of them can bring to the company is the perfect way to achieve this.”