Vicki Willden-Lebrecht

Vicki founded Bright Group International in 2003, now one a fast- growing and established children’s literary and illustration agency with a global reach. Twice Nominated for Literary Agent of the Year, she has spent the last 20 years as principal author/illustrator Agent for the company, leading the way for innovation and foresight in the recruitment and development of Bright artists’ work. Formal training in Graphic Design has given Vicki an expert eye for spotting visually distinctive content whilst maintaining a confident commercial focus. After graduating Vicki set out to start a pioneering agency that prioritized the creative needs of its artists and publishers as well as the legal and financial offerings of an agency. Bright has since grown into one of the most forward thinking talent management agencies, with exceptional results in the last 20 years, now managing artists including Benji Davies, Chris Chatterton and Yasmeen Ismail, to name a few. Vicki has a flair for finding artists from other industries where storyboards are transferable, such as animators or designers. She takes existing skills and develops these to create new concepts, tailored to the trade picture book marketplace. From these Vicki’s brand and media opportunities are born, moving the storyboard concepts back off the page into TV, film, merchandise and broadcasting platforms. From diversity to the environment, Vicki continues to advance our agency values, while championing new voices that enrich the lives of young readers and leaves the world better than we found it. She is proud of the work her agency is doing to find and publish many extraordinary new, inclusive, diverse and extraordinarily talented authors and illustrators. Dedicated to shine light on a real and reflective world and help children develop empathy and understanding, lift up communities, and help build a better future for all. Listening to feedback and applying her own instinctive understanding of the market, Vicki responds to every story individually, helping her illustrators to find its ideal place in the global market and working to ensure that it will best capture the hearts and imaginations of children around the world. Inspiring to both her illustrators and publishers, it is important to Vicki that the artist’s creativity is respected and their talent fully recognized.