On March 20, 2026, Judd Zebersky concluded his role as CEO of Jazwares, the company he founded in the late 1990s after trading a law career for manufacturing. The transition brought David Neustein, the company’s COO for 14 years, into the chief executive seat on March 23, 2026. The scale of what Judd Zebersky left behind made headlines: roughly 1,400 employees, products reaching customers in more than 100 countries, and a brand name tied to Squishmallows, one of the most commercially successful toy lines in recent memory.
The Unconventional Start
Judd Zebersky’s entry into the toy business was anything but conventional. After earning his law degree from the University of Miami and running his own firm, he walked away from legal practice entirely. He told his wife he wanted to make toys. She encouraged him to go for it. In 1997, he flew to China and spent months embedded in toy manufacturing facilities, studying the physical and engineering processes that turned raw materials into retail products. He learned injection molding, blow molding, rotocasting, and hair rooting methods firsthand, traveling to remote industrial towns to do it.
Those early months shaped Jazwares in lasting ways. The company built its first catalog around licensed entertainment merchandise, securing deals with Minecraft, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Fortnite. The licenses created distribution pathways and validated the brand with major retailers. Acquisitions later broadened the company’s reach: Wicked Cool Toys in 2019, Kellytoy in 2020.
Squishmallows and What Came With It
Kellytoy brought Squishmallows, the plush toy line defined by soft materials, round shapes, and characters with personal histories including names, birthdays, and bios. Social media, particularly TikTok, amplified the brand beyond what traditional marketing could have achieved. Celebrity fans emerged without formal partnership. Sales exceeded 100 million units in a single year, with individual toys priced between five and thirty dollars. Alleghany Capital Corporation, which had invested in Jazwares in 2014 and held a majority position from 2016, was acquired by Berkshire Hathaway in 2022, drawing Jazwares into one of the world’s largest investment portfolios. Judd Zebersky also founded Jazwares Cares at the company’s inception, partnering with Make-A-Wish, Toys for Tots, and Ronald McDonald House, while personally donating two million dollars to Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital. See related link for more information.
Learn more about Judd Zebersky https://www.jazwares.com/about-us/leadership