TODD HOOPER
CEO and Founder, VREAL

Todd is an experienced entrepreneur, having founded and operated multiple companiesin the enterprise and entertainment markets. He started developing video games in assembly code as a teenager, and went on to a career in enterprise networking, serving on the management team of WatchGuard Technologies and founding Napera Networks. Todd returned to games in 2010, joining Zipline Games as CEO. Prior to VREAL, Todd was VP Online Services at Unity, leading their initiative to revolutionize the way games developers create and connect with an audience. Teams under Todd’s leadership shipped new cloud services enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of Unity developers.

LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddhooper

JAMES BRUNK
Experience Director – Augmented and Virtual Reality, Vectorform

James is an award-winning Creative Director with more than 15 years of strategic interactive experience.  He uses his creative vision, storytelling, and User Experience to help lead and grow the Vectorform Augmented and Virtual reality teams in creating revolutionary work for clients. He managed creative efforts for household names such as HTC, Valve, Coca-Cola, Audi, Nike, Chevrolet, Disney, and HBO. His teams are well known for dreaming and developing immersive solutions that shape an overall digital brand experience.

SCOTT WARNER
Partner, Garvey Schubert Barer

Scott Warner brings a combination of business savvy, domain expertise, creative thinking and more than 15 years of experience in the technology sector to address his clients’ needs. He represents a diverse array of clients, including video game companies, content providers, social networking and new media companies, and software and hardware companies. Mr. Warner regularly provides guidance in all aspects of intellectual property rights and business transactions, such as copyright, trademark, trade secret, licensing and distribution, joint ventures, employment and non-competition, publishing, e-commerce, privacy and data security, web hosting, content development and clearance, and domain disputes. His clients include start-ups, non-profits and public companies.

A frequent speaker and lecturer on intellectual property, high technology, technology transfer, and arts and entertainment law issues, Mr. Warner currently serves on the advisory board for LOGIN Conference. He is also involved with organizations that promote the growth of technology and the arts, including the Washington Technology Industry Association, International Technology Law Association, Copyright Society, Licensing Executive Society, International Trademark Association (INTA), Northwest Entrepreneur Network (NWEN), CleanTech Alliance, 911 Media Arts and Washington Lawyers for the Arts.

Mr. Warner has been recognized by his peers and clients as an AV Peer Review Rated lawyer by Martindale-Hubbell, as a “Super Lawyer” by Washington Law & Politics magazine and one of “Washington’s Most Amazing Lawyers” by Washington CEO Magazine.

DAN ADELMAN
Business Development and Marketing for Axiom Verge, Chasm, and Mages of Mystralia

Dan Adelman left Nintendo of America after 9 years to work more closely with indie developers to help them maximize their chances of success across all platforms. As manager of Nintendo of America’s digital distribution business and content strategy, he was responsible for bringing great indie games like World of Goo, Cave Story, and Shovel Knight to Nintendo platforms. Prior to Nintendo, he was part of the original Xbox launch team, negotiating business deals and planning Xbox Live strategy. He is currently working on Axiom Verge, Chasm, and Mages of Mystralia.

JEFF POBST
Founder and CEO, Hidden Path Entertainment

Jeff has been heavily involved in the gaming industry for almost twenty years holding such roles as game programmer, producer, and chief operating officer. Before co-founding HPE 11 years ago, Jeff was a group leader at Microsoft for the Xbox and Xbox 360 platforms.

Jeff has shipped over 30 different game titles on multiple PC, console, and VR platforms including Hidden Path Entertainment titles such as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Age of Empires II HD, the Defense Grid franchise, and more. Prior to HPE, Jeff had the privilege of bringing games in the Half-Life, Homeworld and Lord of the Rings franchises to market.

Before Jeff entered game development, he earned a doctorate in Aerospace Engineering. At various times, he has been a film student, a researcher, a systems engineer and a project manager.

KATIE CHIRONIS
Game Designer, Oculus Rex

Katie is a game designer on Oculus Rex, Oculus’s internal game development team. She worked as a designer on Farlands for the Rift, and Prologue for the GearVR. She has extensive experience designing and prototyping for high-comfort VR experiences. Previously, she has worked as a game and narrative designer for companies such as Microsoft, Her Interactive, and Signal Studios.

RON HERSHEL
President, Hershel Consulting

Ron graduated from the Air Force Academy and went on to receive his masters in physics from the University of New Mexico, and PhD in Optical Sciences from the University of Arizona and was on the faculties of USC and the University of Arizona. In 1978, he became a consultant to the semiconductor industry and joined HP’s technical staff in 1979. As a consultant, Ron was also involved in the development of the Ultratech Stepper and new pellicles for photomasks which led to numerous patents and papers. In 1988, he received the SEMI award for his contributions to wafer fabrication. Ron is currently working on new technologies to manufacture large flexible displays, on developing new VR devices, and on continuing to investigate the requirements of human stereopsis.

HOLLY BARBACOVI
Vice President of Human Resources, Wizards of the Coast

As Vice President of Human Resources for Wizards of the Coast, Holly is responsible for creating an environment and employee experience where all game creators can do their best work. This covers a wide variety of disciplines, including Staffing, Learning & Development, Organization Development, Executive Coaching, Culture Transformation and Employee Relations for a globally distributed team.

A 17-year veteran of the tech and gaming industry, Holly has held several roles. Prior to Wizards of the Coast, Holly served as HR Director for Wargaming and as Director of Operations for 343 Industries. Before that, she served as Sr. HR Manager and Staffing Manager for Microsoft Studios, where she worked on franchises such as Kinect and Halo.

Holly is passionate about optimizing systems, processes and human capital to bring a business strategy to life. On a more personal note, Holly is the proud mother of 9-year-old twins who are already far better at video games than she could ever hope to be.

SEAN KRANKEL
Co-Founder, Night School Studio

Sean started out lugging storyboards for Pixar during the production of Toy Story 2, then spent the better part of a decade designing and producing games for Universal and Disney. After taking a 4 year adventure as an advertising agency creative director, he came back to games and founded Night School Studio in 2014 with his cousin Adam Hines. Their studio’s first game OXENFREE is a supernatural teen thriller about a group of friends who unwittingly open a ghostly rift. Night School recently released MR. ROBOT_1.51exfiltrati0n, a paranoid texting adventure set in the world of the award winning Mr. Robot TV series.

CHRISTIAN COCKS
President, Wizards of the Coast

Christian Cocks is the President of Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro offering games and entertainment under world-renowned brands such as Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons. Before joining Wizards, Christian most recently served as Vice President, OEM Technical Sales at Microsoft Corporation, where he led a global sales and technical engagement team. Prior to his eight-year tenure with Microsoft, Christian served as Vice President of Educational Games at LeapFrog, where he led a cross-discipline team to drive hardware planning, software design and development, marketing and channel management. He began his career in brand management at Procter & Gamble and served in product management and marketing leadership positions in Xbox and MSN, including work on hit franchises like Halo and Fable.

MELISSA DINGMON
Social Media Manager and Game Evangelist, Big Fish Games

Melissa is a lifelong gamer. She learned to spell playing King’s Quest, learned the importance of teamwork from Portal 2, and became a leader in World of Warcraft. She is the Senior Social Strategist for Big Fish Games; working at the intersection between game design, business development, marketing, and community management. Tweet with her: @melissadingmon!

JARED NIEUWENHUIS
Marketing Director, HerInteractive

Competition and playing games run deep in Jared Nieuwenhuis’ veins. As a child he was a dedicated soccer player, ultimately playing in college and professionally in Europe. He now embraces that love of gaming as marketing director of Her Interactive, where he sets the global marketing and communications strategy for the company’s mystery adventures games aimed at females, and executes new product launches of the company’s popular Nancy Drew titles.

Nieuwenhuis came to Her Interactive after working as vice president of marketing at Sandlot Games, where he re-branded the company and led the global launch on multiple platforms of more than 20 new games – including Cake Mania. He led all aspects of Sandlot Games’ corporate and consumer marketing strategies and drove co-marketing partnerships with licensors and publishers on various platforms including the Wii, DS, mobile, PC, online, Mac, and iOS.

“I caught the technology bug during the height of the dot-com era and I wanted to be in that space,” Nieuwenhuis says. “It was very exciting to see the changing way people behave online, how interactive entertainment was transforming how people spent their free time.” Drawing from his professional soccer experience, Nieuwenhuis recognized how participating in a form of entertainment is even more exciting than just watching it. He enjoys bringing that experience to everyone’s living rooms, computers and mobile devices.

Prior to working at Sandlot Games, Nieuwenhuis helped Vidiator (a Hutchison Whampoa Company) become a leading technology and solution enabler of mobile video, audio and 3D messaging by leading a global team as director, Marketing Communications. He also served as director of Marketing Communications at Dijji Corp. and Mobliss, where he successfully managed and promoted the launch of popular mobile titles including Deal or No Deal, New York Times Crossword Puzzle, Family Feud and ESPN Bass Fishing. He successfully managed and promoted the launch of some of the biggest brands in the world with mobile content or games for Rolling Stone, Napster, USA TODAY, The Coca-Cola Company, ESPN, Nike and Fox Television.

MATTHEW VIGLIONE
Co-Founder, SomaSim

Matthew is a co-founder of SomaSim, a Chicago-based indie studio founded in 2013 to create simulation games. He has extensive experience in creative direction, writing and graphic design. Before starting SomaSim, Matthew was the director of communications for Catholic Charities in San Francisco.

SERGIO PAOLANTONIO
Director of Design & Development, Augmented Play, Hasbro

Sergio Paolantonio, Director of Design & Development for Hasbro, has ample experience in human centered design and design driven innovation. He is currently building a world-class Seattle studio that uses Augmented Reality to fuse the physical and the digital together.

The objective is to create mind-blowing ways to deliver fun and engage kids of all ages in immersive brand-focused experiences.

Before joining Hasbro, Sergio worked at Microsoft for over 6 years, leading, building and managing design studios in Seattle, and Beijing. He and his teams designed and shipped disrupting products such as HoloLens, Cortana, Kinect for windows and the Xbox One. Prior to that, Sergio worked at Microsoft Research in Beijing, Panasonic and Hitachi R&D in Tokyo where he focused on next generation Human Computer Interactions.

Sergio holds over 20 invention patents — and has 15 more pending — in Human Computer Interaction and Consumer products. 
Sergio earned a master’s degree in interaction designer from the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea, Italy and a bachelor’s degree (cum laude) in Industrial Design from ISIA in Rome, Italy.

SHANNON LOFTIS
General Manager, Studios 1st Publishing, Xbox

Shannon Loftis is General Manager for Studios 1st Publishing on Team Xbox. Shannon has been with Microsoft since 1993, making games for the vast majority of that time.

Shannon studied computer science and mathematics at Duke University. She joined Microsoft in 1993 and quickly migrated to the Entertainment Product Unit. Her earliest work focused on the creation of online card-playing games, utilizing the emerging consumer potential of the internet and social game design. Shannon has been responsible for multiplayer games across all of Microsoft’s gaming platforms (console, PC and Hololens), including the Madness series (Motocross Madness, Monster Truck Madness, and Midtown Madness), Project Gotham Racing, the Fable series, the Viva Pinata series, Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts, and many others. In total, Shannon has contributed to more than 50 games.

Shannon has created and led many global teams in the US and UK, including games publishing teams, interactive television teams, and internal game development studios (most notably Good Science, the team responsible for greenlighting and shipping the Kinect with full-motion games and core in 2010). Currently the Studios Global Publishing team is focused on such AAA franchises as Quantum Break, Ori and the Blind Forest, and the Microsoft Casual Suite.
In her free time, Shannon enjoys playing video games, running, and traveling with her husband and two sons.

ROBIN WALKER
Valve

NICK BERRY
Data Scientist, Facebook

Nick, a native of the UK, has lived in Seattle for the last 20 years. He was educated as a rocket scientist and aircraft designer, graduating with a Master’s Degree in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering.

Upon graduation, he joined a group of friends to form a software company, specializing in electronic mapping and route planning. This company was grown organically, and earned an unprecedented number of awards and accolades, including the British Design Award and The Queen’s Award for Technology, presented by Her Majesty in 1991. In 1994 Nick was recognized by the Sunday Times Magazine as “One of the top 50 entrepreneurs of the decade”. In 1994, after the company had grown to 50 people worldwide, it was sold to Microsoft.

Nick moved to America with the sale and spent 14 years working for Microsoft, the last ten of which were in the Microsoft Casual Game team. During his tenure, he filed a variety of patents for Microsoft, and represented Microsoft at various conferences and speaking engagements.

After leaving Microsoft, he joined Real Networks to work as the GM of customer analytics for their games division, then spent a couple of years consulting. In 2012, Nick joined Facebook, as a Data Scientist, and now proudly works out of their office in Seattle.

In addition to his engineering expertise, Nick is passionate about data privacy and holds a CIPP qualification from the International Association of Privacy Professionals. He is an active member of the privacy community and speaks at various events about the legal and ethical aspects of data collection, use, storage, and destruction.

In his spare time, Nick is an active blogger about data science, gaming, and general geekery (“One of the top 25 Data Science blogs on the internet”) with his postings being regularly republished in places like HackerNews, Popular Science, NPR, BBC and Yahoo News. Nick speaks regularly at gaming conferences such as PAX, GDC and Casual Connect (where he also acts as a judge for the indie games competitions).

In July 2013, Nick gave a TEDx talk about Passwords and the Internet and in 2015 was voted the GeekWire, “Geek-of-the-week”

JOHN SMITH
Technical Director, Wargaming

John has developed multiplayer game technology and platforms for over 20 years and is now working at Wargaming.net (creator of World of Tanks) in Bellevue, WA on a games platform. He has worked at Internet Gaming Zone in 1990s, which delivered casual games, retail games and eCommerce infrastructure for MMOs, then worked on Sony Online Entertainment’s MMOs and along the way a couple of startups which developed their own platforms for server and mobile games.

LEAH HOYER
Vice President of Creative, Telltale Games

Leah Hoyer is passionate about making story experiences. She recently joined Telltale Games as their Vice President of Creative. Prior to that, she was head of narrative at both ArenaNet (Guild Wars 2) and Xbox Studios. She recently launched ThePlayersStory.com to share insights on creating interactive story, and hopes that it will become a place where folks who love game narrative can learn and share ideas.

JOHN LINDVAY
Community Manager, Red Hook Studios

John Lindvay is the community manager at Red Hook Studios working on Darkest Dungeon. He also helps organize Train Jam with Adriel Wallick and runs the Student Ambassador Program for the event. Train Jam is an annual game jam which charters a group 200+ developers on an Amtrak Train from Chicago to San Francisco on the days leading up to GDC. In 2010, John started the podcast BigSushi.fm where he has interviewed over 200 developers in the industry and shared those conversations with listeners around the world.

JASON CHEIN
CEO, Bit Toys

An old kid who refuses to grow up, Jason founded Bit Toys in 2014 and has been reinventing toyplay through NFC, AR/VR, mobile, and cloud for market leaders like Mattel, Take-Two, Alpha Group, and more.

Prior to Bit Toys, he served in various executive roles, built teams & products, and led strategic gaming initiatives such as Amazon’s game services, EA’s setup and growth in China, and Xbox 360’s early exploration in Asia.

Jason started in the games industry 25 years ago by responding to a recruiting ad inside his copy of Comanche: Over the Edge. From there, he went on to shipped 20+ games, contributed to 30+ games, consulted for Zynga, Gamania, & numerous start-ups, and spoke at SLUSH, Casual Connect, Tokyo Game Show, Korea Game Conference, GDC China & ChinaJoy.

ONDRAUS JENKINS
Chief Business Officer, Bungie

Ondraus (sometimes referred to around the studio by his nome de guerre “OJ”) is the Chief Business Officer of Bungie. OJ has always been fascinated by the intersection of technology, event-driven pop culture, and business. After a tour of duty with a large Wall Street law firm in New York and Los Angeles, he moved to a talent-side boutique law firm in Beverly Hills. His migration to interactive business came soon after, thanks to an invitation from Electronic Arts. After only a scant few years of providing sound business development counsel on the provision of entertainment software, a fateful conversation with Bungie in 2008 set him on the path to return to the Pacific Northwest. Ondraus has been a Bungie fan since first playing Marathon on his Macintosh in 1994, but he’s all about Destiny these days. He is a graduate of Stanford University, The Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy, and the Columbia University School of Law.

CAM BROWN
Co-Founder/CCO, Against Gravity

Cameron Brown is co-founder and CCO of Against Gravity, makers of the popular social VR app Rec Room. Cam has worked in video games for over twenty years, and was also a creative director on the Microsoft HoloLens program. He believes the future of computing is social, physical, and very exciting!

TIM BORRELLI
Animation & VFX Director, First Strike Games

Tim has worked in the games industry for 18 years, currently as the Animation & VFX Director of First Strike Games, He also owns and operates Squats and Stretch Animation, a game animation outsource studio, and is a founding contributor to the AnimState network. He has previously worked for 5th Cell as Animation & VFX lead and for Volition, both as a lead animator and as the company’s first technical animator. His work has included animation creation/direction, mocap direction/cleanup, and technical animation on game series such as Freespace, Summoner, Red Faction, and Saints Row, as well as the Scribblenauts franchise and Hybrid. His most recent work can be found in Earthshape, a game by Mike Bithell for Google Daydream. His speaking experience includes running the Technical Animation Roundtable, Animation and Character Performance Roundtable, and speaking on animation related panels and talks at GDC and PAXDev.

DJBLUE PDX
Executive Producer, GrifballHub.com

DJBlue PDX is the Executive Producer & Director Of Broadcasting with GrifballHub.com, and teaches Broadcast Streaming with the Integrated Media & Broadcast Production program at Mt Hood Community College. His past achievements include the Grifball World Championships at RTX in Austin, TX, Content Development & management for 3 Twitch Channels, managing 2 North American & 2 International Production teams, plus over a decade as club DJ. He’s also responsible for establishing the initial Broadcast Program for Lightning Strike Gaming & Pro Battle League.

DAVID EDERY
CEO, Spry Fox

David Edery is the CEO of Spry Fox, the studio behind titles such as Triple Town, Alphabear, Bushido Bear Steambirds, Realm of the Mad God and Road Not Taken. Previously, David was worldwide games portfolio manager for Microsoft’s Xbox LIVE service, where he was responsible for content strategy and selecting the games that would be accepted for distribution by the LIVE service. David co-authored, “Changing the Game: How Video Games are Transforming the Future of Business” a book that explores the ways that games can be leveraged by businesses for serious purposes.

RYAN GREENE
Blizzard

Ryan has been helping develop game engines for Blizzard Entertainment for 11 years. In that time he has shipped Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty and Overwatch, Blizzard’s highly stylized team-based first person shooter. Ryan is a generalist within the core engine team, with a slight slant towards rendering technology. He graduated from the University of California, Irvine with a B.S. in Information and Computer Science. Ryan spends his free time with his wife and son, cooking, and home brewing his own beer.

DEAN TAKAHASHI
Lead Writer, GamesBeat

Dean Takahashi is lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He has been a tech journalist for more than 25 years, and he has covered games for 18 years. He has been at VentureBeat since 2008. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, “Opening the Xbox” and “The Xbox 360 Uncloaked.” He organizes the annual GamesBeat and GamesBeat Summit conferences. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

ED FRIES
Game Guy

Ed Fries created his first video games for the Atari 800 in the early 1980s. He joined Microsoft in 1986, and spent the next ten years as one of the early developers of Excel and Word. He left the Office team to pursue his passion for interactive entertainment and created Microsoft Game Studios. Over the next eight years he grew the team from 50 people to over 1200, published more than 100 games including more than a dozen million+ sellers, co-founded the Xbox project, and made Microsoft one of the leaders in the video game business.

In 2004, Ed retired from his Microsoft Vice President job to continue his work in the video game business as board member, advisor and consultant to a broad range of publishers, independent game developers, and media companies. In 2007 Ed launched his own startup, FigurePrints, an innovative company that uses color 3D printing technology to bring video game characters to life. In the summer of 2010 Ed released “Halo 2600”, a “demake” of the Halo video game series for the Atari 2600. In 2013 “Halo 2600” became one of the first two video games to be added to the permanent collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

JOEL BRETON
Vice President of VR Content, HTC Vive

Joel is Vice President of VR Content and Head of Vive Studios at HTC Vive. He and his team are working with worldwide content creators to develop a rich portfolio across all categories of VR, including games, education, cinematic, live-events, v-sports, music, shopping, and entertainment. Joel has produced more than twenty platinum-selling videogames in his career, and he has launched games on thirty commercial platforms from the Sega Genesis to HTC Vive. After beginning his career at Sega of America, his first role as a game producer was for GT interactive, where he produced Doom, Duke Nukem, Unreal, and the first version of the Unreal game engine. He then moved to Bethesda Softworks, where he launched a string of successful AAA games including Sea Dogs, Burnout, and Pirates of the Caribbean. Joel also spent 4 years at MTV Networks, where he served as Director of Content and worked with developers around the world to launch blockbuster online, mobile, and console games.

SETH SCHNEIDER
Product Owner, Intel GPA

Seth Schneider is the Intel Graphics Performance Analyzers (Intel GPA) Product Owner.  As product owner, Seth sets the direction of Intel GPA to ensure that it is meeting customer requirements and makes optimizing games on Intel a great experience.  He has been at Intel for four years, starting in workstation graphics and moving to the graphics tools team two years ago.  Seth enjoys all things games…from playing them, to optimizing them. You can often find him on a Saturday night, drinking some great Oregon microbrews and playing games with his daughter.

AARON OLSON
VP – Sr. Financial Consultant, Charles Schwab

Aaron Olson has worked in the financial services industry for the past 20 years. Currently, Aaron is a VP – Sr. Financial Consultant at Charles Schwab, a position he’s held for the last 14 years. As a Schwab Financial Consultant, Aaron is dedicated to building relationships with new and existing clients, helping them achieve their financial goals by providing guidance on retirement or education expense planning, wealth management, 10b5 plans, corporate cash management, portfolio and asset allocation. He identifies and understands client goals and objectives, and is committed to making sure that each Schwab client’s relationship is customized to help address his or her unique needs by partnering with specialists and utilizing investing insights available at Schwab. He currently lives in Bellevue, WA with his wife Katie and their son.

SHERIF DENKTAS
Managing Director, Charles Schwab

Serif O. Denktas is a Managing Director overseeing the Income Solutions Team. Previous to his current position, Serif was a regional director of income solutions overseeing the Pacific Northwest & Great Plains Regions. Serif started his career with Schwab in 1999 and prior to returning in 2010, he worked as a fixed income analyst for a regional registered investment advisor (RIA) where he specialized in actively trading high-yield securities. Serif frequently conducted client seminars on portfolio updates, current economic developments and investment opportunities. Serif earned both his Bachelor of Science in finance with a minor in economics and a Masters of Business Administration degree from the University of Colorado.

CHRIS HEGSTROM
Senior VR Audio Specialist, The Sound Lab at Technicolor

Chris started his audio career doing live sound for Blue Man Group while studying Music Synthesis at Berklee College of Music. He got into the games industry by way of web audio & shipped console titles like Lord of the Rings, the Two Towers, Star Wars Episode 3, Burnout Paradise & God of War 3. In 2010 he joined Microsoft to direct audio for Kinect & then moved onto HoloLens soon after. Chris spent 3 years working on all aspects of HoloLens audio design & direction from individual experiences to sonic continuity to general audio UX. Chris left Microsoft in 2015 to explore the VR, AR & UX fields & discover what audio means to them. He started his own interactive sound service, Symmetry Audio & has since worked for clients such as Unity, HBO, Technicolor & Google.

MARK SUBOTNICK
Business Development, Client Computing Group VR Center of Excellence, Intel

Mark Subotnick, known as Bot to many, has been in the video games industry since late 1993. Mark has worked in the entertainment industry for most of his life, starting as an event / club promoter and then moving into the video games industry. He started his video game career at SEGA of America, as a tester and working in various roles and on his way to producing, and managing internal development before moving on in late 2000. Some of the roles and jobs Mark held during his time at SEGA of America are lead tester, QA supervisor, Marketing, PR spokesperson, and Producer at SEGA, running internal development for the DreamCast Launch.

Mark joined the Executive team of a small startup in Silicon Valley from 2000 to 2002 working on 3D web enabling technologies. Mark then joined Microsoft in 2002 and began to work on Xbox, Xbox Live, Games for Windows, and eventually Xbox 360 as a Developer Relations Manager. Mark worked with all developers of games for Microsoft platforms in the following territories, Northern California, Texas, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Seattle. Mark left Microsoft in 2007 to join Intel Corporation as the Executive Producer of Project Offset and the Game Engine Team. Mark then worked in the Software and Services Group at Intel Corporation focusing on Content Strategy, Business Development, Account Management and Portfolio Management for 8 years. Mark now works in Business Development for the Client Computing Group VR Center of Excellence.

Mark is credited in over 31 games from 1993 to the Present and to date has worked on 10 platforms and 8 platform launches.

PETER HEINRICH
Developer Evangelist, Amazon

Peter Heinrich is a Developer Evangelist with Amazon focused on mobile development best practices, including game design, coding, marketing, and monetization. Before Amazon, Peter created desktop and console games for fifteen years before moving to online and mobile. He co-founded indie studios Smarterville and Zero Entertainment after working as an individual contributor for several large game developers.

MIKO CHARBONNEAU
Senior Designer, Microsoft

Miko Charbonneau began telling stories at the age of five and hasn’t stopped since, working on a long series of web comics, novels, software and games. After earning her Ph.D in Computer Science on dance game user interfaces, she joined Microsoft to take part in the launch of HoloLens, an augmented reality device. She runs the independent game studio Pretty Smart Games, which is currently releasing Code Romantic, a programming puzzle game powered by a sci-fi love story.

DAVID DAGUE
Communications Director, Bungie

David Dague became a Bungie fan in the year 2001. Throughout his campaign as a player, he invested deeply in the community experience that Bungie games are designed to inspire. As the founder of TiedtheLeader.com, he wrote a blog devoted to exploring the politics of online multiplayer and promoting the virtues of a strong friends list to support a healthy pastime. Over time, this resulted in the creation of a network of Clans devoted to defending the notions of sportsmanship and goodwill. To this day, the TTL Gunslingers can be found patrolling any shooter that brings players together. In 2011, he moved to Washington to join Bungie and lead the community that had captured his imagination. Since then, he has fostered a new community of Destiny players. As the Communications Director, his new role is to ensure that Bungie’s message to the world is focused on games where friendships are made. He also leads the official player support team that keeps the Guardians informed and connected. The Internet refers to him as “DeeJ” and so should you.

ADAM LIEB
Innervate

Adam is an experienced entrepreneur, having founded and operated multiple companies in and around the games industry over the last 20 years. He has built both consumer and enterprise products that have scaled to millions of gamers and millions of dollars in revenue. Adam’s entire career has centered around building and growing massive communities of gamers. At Innervate he has raised millions of dollars in VC to grow and scale a suite of services catering to game developers and publishers.

LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamslieb

JAKE BERNSTEIN
Attorney, Newman Du Wors

Jake represents companies subject to inquiries, investigations, and actions brought by regulatory agencies, such as state attorneys general and the Federal Trade Commission. He also advises businesses about advertising, marketing, regulatory compliance, privacy, and cybersecurity. Jake has significant experience with laws regulating the collection, storage, and use of private consumer data.

Before joining Newman Du Wors, Jake served eight years as an Assistant Attorney General in the Consumer Protection Division of the Washington State Attorney General’s Office. There, he prosecuted unfair and deceptive business practices including online advertising, negative-option marketing, spam under state law and the federal CAN-SPAM Act, spyware, and consumer-privacy violations. With a background and degree in science, Jake also pursued companies making deceptive health claims. Jake now provides our clients with a practical approach to maximizing effective marketing while mitigating the risk that government regulatory agencies or private plaintiffs will initiate legal action.

Jake graduated first in his law-school class, and served as a law clerk for Chief Justice Barbara Madsen in the Washington State Supreme Court. Jake counsels clients from the perspective of an experienced government prosecutor.

MIKO CHARBONNEAU
Senior Designer, Microsoft

Miko Charbonneau began telling stories at the age of five and hasn’t stopped since, working on a long series of web comics, novels, software and games. After earning her Ph.D in Computer Science on dance game user interfaces, she joined Microsoft to take part in the launch of HoloLens, an augmented reality device. She runs the independent game studio Pretty Smart Games, which is currently releasing Code Romantic, a programming puzzle game powered by a sci-fi love story.

TADHG KELLY
Director of Developer Relations, VREAL

Tadhg Kelly is a game designer, writer and speaker based in Seattle. Originally from Dublin via London, Tadhg’s 17 year industry career has encompassed many roles, from startup founder, consultant, creative director and now director of developer relations at VREAL. Tadhg has been frequently published at Gamasutra, TechCrunch and Edge, and is also the author of the game design blog What Games Are. He is currently working on a book, Core Game Design.

ROBERT ZUBEK
Game Developer & Co-Founder, SomaSim

Robert Zubek is a game developer and co-founder at SomaSim, a Chicago-based indie studio founded in 2013 to create simulation games. Previously, he built large-scale online social games at Zynga, MMO game and analytics infrastructure at Three Rings Design, and programmed game AI at Electronic Arts/Maxis. Before joining the industry, he did research work in artificial intelligence and robotics. Robert holds a PhD in computer science from Northwestern University, where he also received his previous CS degrees.

JESSE RAPCZAK
Co-Founder & Co-Creative Director, Studio Wildcard

Jesse Rapczak is Co-Founder and Co-Creative Director at Studio Wildcard (Kirkland, WA), the team behind the smash indie hit game ARK: Survival Evolved on PC, Xbox and PlayStation. An innovator-entrepreneur with the discerning eye of an artist and the logical wiring of a programmer, Jesse’s teams excel at rapid prototyping and creative development, allowing for critical path decision-making that turns emergent technology and blue-sky ideas into commercially competitive products.

Prior to his current venture, Jesse was Technical Art Director on Microsoft HoloLens at Xbox and Lead Technical Artist at Sony Online Entertainment, after spending 3 years in India as VP of Production at Exigent, an outsourcing company he co-founded. Jesse’s first entrepreneurial venture, Artificial Studios (which he also co-founded), created Reality Engine, a next-gen game engine that was acquired by Epic Games in 2005. Jesse got his start in Hollywood Visual Effects after graduating from the University of Florida in 2003 (BS: Digital Arts and Sciences).

KATY JO WRIGHT
Director, Gaming for Everyone, Xbox

As part of TEAM XBOX, Katy Jo is working with leaders across the organization to make Xbox a place everyone has fun. Gaming For Everyone is about driving inclusive practices into the creative and engineering processes that deliver high quality and fun experiences to all our fans.

Katy Jo has been at Microsoft for 17 years. Prior to working in Xbox, Katy Jo spent 4 years on the Global Diversity & Inclusion team, where she partnered with Business and HR Leaders in four of Microsoft’s engineering groups to attract, retain, and develop diverse talent, as well as create an inclusive work environment where all employees can reach their potential.
Prior to working in Global Diversity & Inclusion, Katy Jo spent 7 years in another Organizational Development role where she built and launched Microsoft’s integrated worldwide talent platform for managing and developing employees across the entire company, known as the career model.

Katy Jo spent her first 5 years at Microsoft within the University Recruiting team, where she was committed to hiring the best and brightest students graduating college.

MIKE UZIEL
Lead Character Artist

Mike Uziel is a 12 year industry vet who has done just about every job in the art pipeline, from concept and modeling to art direction and even project management. When he’s not working on games, Mike stays busy creating children’s books, doing projects with other local artists, playing games, and spending time with his family.

Mike also keeps a regular art journal at www.instagram.com/mikeuziel .

JON COLLINS
Kaio Interactive

Having developed mobile apps, games, and educational titles in the UK, Jon relocated to Seattle in 2010 and launched Kaio Interactive to better connect with established partners in the Pacific North West. Since doing so, in addition to continuing to develop mobile games, Jon and the team at Kaio have been able to help other Indie studios in the PNW and have also become a member of the Intel Innovator Program. After launching a number of AR games, his team are now developing their own VR games. Kaio Interactive’s “Leave the Nest” launched in May ’16 on the Vive and more recently on the PSVR in March ‘17. With more VR projects underway Jon is a firm believer that VR is here to stay and grow as the technology becomes more & more accessible to consumers.

NICHOLAS DE WOLFF
President, de Wolff Advisors

A passionate advocate for long-term business growth driven by innovation, community, and IP development, Nicholas de Wolff has served as an advisor and mentor to individuals, corporations, non-profits, and governments around the world. Nicholas has developed ground-breaking campaigns for clients including Disney, the Jim Henson Company, Lexus, Intel, and Sony. Founder of City Arts Project, the world’s first 3D online arts community; former Chief Marketing Officer at Technicolor; co-founder of the Producers Guild of America’s New Media Council, Founding Chair of the NFFTY Advisory Board – Nicholas was inducted in to the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences 15 years ago, and has served on the Jury for both the Emmy Awards and College Television Awards for a number of years. Nicholas has advised and worked with a number of game industry enterprises, including Activision, LucasArts, the IGDA, and Indiecade finalist – Elbowfish Games. He spends far too much time on Twitter (@usdew), Facebook, and every casual mobile twitch game that comes along, and mitigates this addiction by obsessively rereading classic works of literature. He currently lives in Burbank, California with his wife and daughter, where everybody wakes up to sunny days, but dreams of a little rain.

BRIAN THOMPSON
Senior Director of Art, Big Fish Games

Brian is an avid lover of the outdoors, father and husband. Brian is the senior director of art for Big Fish Games’ internal development studio, and co-creator and art director of the critically acclaimed mobile adventure game FETCH and the beautiful Drawn adventure game series. Brian’s work has appeared in Wired magazine; Spectrum: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art; the prestigious Into the Pixel gallery exhibition, and the Society of Illustrators galleries in L.A. and New York. The creative process behind the making of FETCH was a featured exhibit at the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle. Brian has done cover art and book illustration for Harper Collins and others and is the author of New To Games, A New Vision, a feature article for Gamasutra. Brian loves teaching and learning equally and has spoken at Savannah College of Art and Design, Ringling College of Art and Design, Digipen Institute of Technology, as well as Shoreline Community College, AIE, and the International School in Washington.

Brian is a graduate of Art Center College of Design and holds a B.F.A. in Illustration, with distinction. He lives on Bainbridge Island with his wife Melinda and their two children.

JASON ROBAR
Consultant, AuthorDigital

SIERRA REID
Product Marketing Engineer, Intel

Sierra is a Product Marketing Engineer for Intel Graphics Performance Analyzers (Intel GPA). Sierra manages Intel GPA’s marketing activities including conferences, webpages, and co-marketing strategies with Intel’s game development program. She has been at Intel for two years and loves working in the gaming space. Pacific Northwest born and raised, Sierra loves spending time outdoors. Outside of the office you will often find her mountain biking, hiking, or paddle boarding.

JEFF EASTERLING
Franchise Writer, 343 Industries

Jeff Easterling, also known by his Twitter and Xbox Live handle GrimBrother One, is a writer at 343 Industries, responsible for the weekly lore-centric blog series Canon Fodder, which documents and expands upon many aspects of the Halo universe. Before being hired at 343, Easterling was a dedicated member and admin on the HBO forums.

KEN WUNPHENG
Ultimate Halo – YouTube Channel

RON HERSHEL
President, Hershel Consulting

Ron graduated from the Air Force Academy and went on to receive his masters in physics from the University of New Mexico, and PhD in Optical Sciences from the University of Arizona and was on the faculties of USC and the University of Arizona. In 1978, he became a consultant to the semiconductor industry and joined HP’s technical staff in 1979. As a consultant, Ron was also involved in the development of the Ultratech Stepper and new pellicles for photomasks which led to numerous patents and papers. In 1988, he received the SEMI award for his contributions to wafer fabrication. Ron is currently working on new technologies to manufacture large flexible displays, on developing new VR devices, and on continuing to investigate the requirements of human stereopsis.

ADAM PAULSEN
Bond and Fixed Income Specialist, Charles Schwab

Adam Paulsen has worked in the financial services industry the past 20 years. Currently, Adam is a Bond and Fixed Income Specialist at Charles Schwab, a position he’s held the last 10 years. Adam builds relationships with new and existing clients, focusing efforts on informing, educating and advising clients with regard to their fixed income needs. He identifies and understands client goals and objectives, and then recommends appropriate investment vehicles to meet fixed income needs, including wealth management, portfolio and asset allocation. Adam enjoys working with specialized investment products and previously worked for 5 years as an Options Trading Specialist, also at Charles Schwab. Adam graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1995. He currently lives in Denver with his wife Elizabeth and their two young children.

JAY MINN
Executive Producer, Wargaming.net

Jay Minn serves as the Executive Producer at Wargaming.net, publisher and developer of World of Tanks, and is currently focused on developing platform and game operation technologies. Previously Jay co-founded Area 52 Games, Inc. and worked as the Chief Games Officer and Creative Director working closely with Disney Interactive on a key Star Wars project. As VP & Studio Director at Gazillion Entertainment, Jay directed and shipped Marvel Super Hero Squad Online, a major online world in cooperation with Marvel. He has over 22 years of experience in the gaming industry and is an experienced game designer, executive producer and creative director. He has expertise in mobile and online gaming and technologies with an emphasis on international development in China, Korea, and Eastern Europe. He advises developers, publishers, media companies and venture groups, and was responsible for assisting in the acquisition of his company Secret Lair Studios to Sierra Online, a division of Vivendi Games. His clients and partners have included Capcom, Disney Interactive, Lucasfilm, Marvel Entertainment, Microsoft Game Studios, and the Department of Homeland Security.

LANDYN PETHRUS
Technical Marketing Engineer, Intel

Landyn Pethrus is an engineer at Intel, avid gamer, and hardware enthusiast. When Landyn is not fountain sniping with Ancient Apparition in Dota2, slaying bosses, or pursuing higher level education, he can be found on the rivers of Oregon fishing.