About David Michel

David Michel is Co-Founder & President of Cottonwood Media. He is also Co-Founder of French powerhouse Federation Studios and Managing Director of its kids’ division Federation Kids & Family.

Established in 2014, Cottonwood Media (co-founded by David Michel, Zoé Carrera Allaix & Cécile Laurenson) creates, produces and invests in premium, talent-driven animation and live action content.  Based in Paris, with offices in Los Angeles, Toronto and Berlin, Cottonwood Media currently has four series including the hit tween drama series Find Me in Paris and animation feature films such as Around the World in 80 Days (distributed by Studio Canal) in production.  With over two decades of television experience producing children’s programming, Michel was previously GM of Marathon Media where he created and produced international marquee series including Totally Spies.

About Zoé Carrera Allaix

Zoé Carrera Allaix is one of the 3 co-founders of Cottonwood Media and a Producer. In the early 2000s, she was a building block of Marathon Media  where, early in her career, she served as the company’s first Studio Head. At Marathon, Zoe was Instrumental in putting together the creative team & process behind global success Totally Spies!.

Zoé went on to work in the animated feature industry as she became a Production Director and Executive Producer at Mac Guff, working on properties such as The Lorax, Kirikou an Pat et Stan. She held the same role at Teamto where she oversaw production for Yellowbird (2014).

About Cécile Laurenson

Cécile is co-founder and Managing Director of Cottonwood Media, France and the German branch of the company in Berlin.

Cécile started her career in Germany as a music video and commercials producer. She went on to become Managing Director of Marathon GMBH (Berlin) where she ran operations for all co-productions between Marathon’s French and German animation studios including The Odyssey and The Famous Five. In 2004 Cécile joined Marathon’s Paris studio where she ran business affairs for all programs ( including Totally Spies! ) for over 10 years.