At the same time Hasbro brought out a CD-ROM of Cluedo which Mr Hassenfeld had acquired with the pounds 50m purchase of

At the same time, Hasbro brought out a CD-ROM of Cluedo, which Mr Hassenfeld had acquired with the pounds 50m purchase of Waddingtons Games in 1994. The deal included Monopoly, and by 1995 Mr Hassenfeld had brought out CD-ROMs of Monopoly and Tonka trucks, produced by the newly-created Hasbro Interactive subsidiary. Having seen gaming was where the market was heading, he decided the most important thing to do was beef up the intellectual property portfolio.”We have several core competencies, and originally these were being a producer of action and collectible figures. But what I have to do is understand where we want to be and build competencies around that. You have to change the company to fit where the world is going. I believe I’ve seen the future – what’s picking up the slack in figures is the whole area of gaming So we’ve put more dollars into gaming than any other area. We have desperately gone out to find businesses with content, andour aim is to put these into both board games, computer games and the interactive experience.” Gaming accounts for half of Hasbro’s business and the company’s growing range of interactive CD-ROMs make it the UK’s third largest software publisher.One of Mr Hassenfeld’s early moves as CEO was to spend $343m on the chunky toymaker, Tonka Corporation in 1991 Even then, this was in line with the gaming thesis.

The CD-Rom has created a new market for its existing intellectual property portfolio, and exploiting this to the full is central to Mr Hassenfeld’s strategy. But the real excitement this Christmas will be over Pokemon, Nintendo’s video game cartoon character for which Hasbro makes spin-off figures.The computer revolution has done much for Hasbro. Once a Sindy doll was for kids up to 12, now it’s aimed at three to five-year-olds.”Hasbro is in the throes of transformation. Buoyed by the release of the first of the new series of Star Wars films, which gave Hasbro the chance to undertake the biggest rollout of entertainment product in history, the company’s traditional skills in dolls and figures have come back into play. “Kids aged two and a half are absolutely proficient with a mouse. We have strong products in development in the pre-school area, but that expression now means nought to two and a half years old, whereas – and I hate to date myself – I always thought it meant nought to six years.

Two, I had read a lot about family businesses and how they could tear families apart. I wanted to make it clear my relationship with them came before the business. Three, `I will work with you,’ I said, `Not for you’.”Mr Hassenfeld hasn’t looked back. His fears about the family being undermined were misplaced – “thinking about the three people involved, it was never a risk” – and he worked his way up, with apprenticeships in manufacturing and sales.

By the time he became CEO, the changes already under way in the industry were posing even greater threats to Hasbro’s traditional business, and Hasbro has been forced to adapt more rapidly “Kids are getting older, younger,” he says. One, because this was a time when there was a great deal of hostility to big business, I should never have to sacrifice the ethical values they had instilled in me. If Alan Hassenfeld was going to embrace what he had spent so long determined to avoid, it had to be on his terms. “My father was a sensational man, but I was an independent thinker – and I was a little scared,” he says. “So there were three agreements I made with my brother and father when I came into the business.