P.J. Gunsagar

P.J. Gunsagar

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P.J. is an entrepreneur at heart. After starting his career in finance, working as an investment banker at UBS Warburg and early-stage investor at Intel Capital, he focused his career on building companies at the intersection of technology and media from the ground up. Spire Animation Studios is the fourth company co-founded by P.J.

Prior to Spire, P.J. was Co-Founder and CEO at Kidaptive, an adaptive learning and educational content company focused on personalized learning. Kidaptive is best known for its award-winning animated iPad app, Leo’s Pad, which entertained and educated millions of preschoolers around the world. Kidaptive also developed ALP, a platform for improving learning outcomes by providing highly scalable processing of complex data streams using proprietary machine-learning algorithms. Before Kidaptive, P.J. was Co-Founder & President of Prana Studios, a leading global 3D animation and visual effects studio. Prana’s filmography includes “Transformers,” “TRON Legacy,” “TinkerBell,” and Disney’s “Planes.” P.J. also cofounded Ettache, an online account aggregation company, which was acquired in 2001 by Adhesion Technologies.

P.J. grew up in Saratoga, California and today lives in Los Altos, California with his wife and two daughters, and dog Boomer. He is a die-hard Bengals fan who flies their flag proudly in front of his house.

Brad Lewis

Brad Lewis

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Brad recently produced the Oscar nominated “How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World,” the critically acclaimed conclusion of the trilogy. Lewis also produced the animated film “Storks” and served as executive producer of “The Lego Batman Movie,” both from Warner Bros. Previously Lewis spent 10 years at Pixar, where he worked on a number of the studio’s film including “Ratatouille” (producer) and “Cars 2” (co-director, writer). He worked with Studio Ghibli on the acclaimed animated film “Ponyo,” as vocal director of the English cast. With the formation of DreamWorks SKG in 1994, Lewis was among the company’s first employees as a key executive at PDI/DreamWorks, and produced the studio’s inaugural animated feature, “ANTZ.”

In 2008, he was awarded by Producers Guild America with its PGA Award for Outstanding Producer of Animated Theatrical Motion Pictures for “Ratatouille,” which ultimately won the Academy Award® for Best Animated Feature and a Golden Globe that same year. In addition, he received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Visual Effects for The Simpsons 3d Halloween episode in 1992, a Sports Emmy Award for design for ABC Monday Night Football, and is the recipient of two Clio Awards. ​

A native of San Mateo, CA, Lewis graduated from Fresno State University, where he studied Theatre Arts/Dance. He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) and the Producers Guild of America (PGA).