Vince Klaseus

Vince Klaseus is President of Universal Products & Experiences (UP&E), where he leads the vision and expansion of NBCUniversal’s business in consumer products, games and digital platforms, theme park merchandise, as well as retail experiences and operations worldwide. Additionally, Klaseus is responsible for leading strategic and creative initiatives to build and grow NBCUniversal’s iconic portfolio of intellectual properties into robust consumer brands through strategic brand management.  

Under his leadership, UP&E elevates and extends the company’s characters and stories by bringing them to life every day through imaginative physical and digital products ranging from apparel, toys, home goods, and collectables, to video games and emerging digital offerings, and more across our expansive and expanding retail experiences in our theme park locations, live-entertainment venues, e-commerce product platforms, and retailers around the world. Over the last nine years at NBCUniversal, Klaseus has launched multiple businesses from the ground up and built them into leading global enterprises driving new revenue streams, brand expansion, and increased guest and fan satisfaction and engagement.   

Klaseus’ theme park business unit (which includes theme park merchandise and over 300 vertical retail stores) recently hit a record milestone, delivering the largest revenue and profit numbers in the division’s history. At the same time, he evolved the organizational capabilities to further elevate the product and retail experiences for the guest, but also prepare to further scale as part of the parks’ robust expansion strategy. This includes preparing merchandise and retail experiences for the highly anticipated 2025 opening of Epic Universe, one of the most technologically advanced theme parks ever built. Future initiatives include scaling for more global theme park related merchandise and retail launches still to come. 

Prior to becoming president of UP&E, Klaseus served as president of Universal Brand Development where he launched and rapidly expanded the consumer products business globally across all categories and opened subsidiary offices around the world including Europe, Latin America, China, and Japan. Under his leadership at UBD, Klaseus drove transformative change and growth across the division that led to a dramatic increase in market share and historic revenue success for franchises including Jurassic World, Illumination’s Minions, and breakout, pre-school hit from DreamWorks Animation, Gabby’s Dollhouse, to name a few.   

Klaseus’ inspirational leadership and focus on teamwork and collaboration has been a key ingredient to the successes, particularly with oversight of a diverse, global 3,000 team member population in a matrixed organization. As part of his passion for equity and inclusion in the workplace, he also sponsored a divisional DE&I coalition in early 2020 that established a framework which was later adopted by the larger theme parks business and company.   

Before joining Universal in 2014, Klaseus was the Chief Executive Officer of Cartwheel Kids, a company he co-founded. Prior to Cartwheel Kids, Klaseus worked for the Walt Disney Company for 12 years. During his last four years with the company, he served as General Manager and Senior Vice President of Disney’s Global Toy division. From 2004 to 2008, Klaseus was the Senior Vice President of Franchise Management. He also served as Vice President of Film Franchise Marketing beginning in 2000. Klaseus worked for various international consumer product companies early in his career, including Mattel which he joined in 1995.  

Klaseus is currently a board member of Big Sunday, a charitable organization dedicated to connecting communities across Los Angeles through helping those in need. He also served as Co-Chair for the Family Equality Council’s Annual Impact Awards, an organization dedicated to changing attitudes and policies to ensure that all families are respected, loved, and celebrated. He is also a member of PTTOW!, an invite-only community of C-suite executives who are shaping business and culture to create the world of tomorrow.  

Klaseus received his MBA from The American Graduate School of International Management and a Bachelor of Science Degree from The University of Minnesota.