Studio Director & Founder Joju Games
USA
Juan has been involved in the casual games industry even before the casual games term was coined. He is currently focusing on the production of innovative casual games for PC, Mobile and consoles.
Previously, and as one of the first members of the Yahoo! Games team, Juan was the lead producer for the downloadable games area and community manager of multi player games. In the last year of his tenure at Yahoo!, Juan was the head of Yahoo! Games Studios, producing the first 8 mobile titles the company has released. Juan holds a BFA in Electronic Media from the University of Illinois.
V.P. of Business Development INTENIUM GmbH
Germany
Alla has been in the casual games industry since 2003 working on the managerial positions in business development, sales and marketing in Absolutist, the biggest casual games company in Ukraine. In 2007 she left the company after a year of being its CEO and continued her career as VP of Business Development with Germany-based INTENIUM, one of the leading European casual games distributors for online and retail, as well as publisher and developer under one roof. In this position Alla is responsible for the strategic directions of the game holding, cooperation with international partners, game development and publishing.
She holds an MA in English and World Literature.
V.P. Business Development Arkadium
USA
Neal Sinno is the VP of Business Development at Arkadium, bringing over ten years of experience in market opportunity assessment, product development and sales management. Prior to joining Arkadium, Neal was VP of Business Development at Game Trust. There he managed key relationships and partners to develop network channel, search and advertising opportunities, and was a member of the executive team responsible for the company's acquisition by RealNetworks. Prior to his role at Game Trust, Neal worked at Mellon Financial Corp, where he was the Director of E-Commerce Product Development. Within his role there, he led a global team of developers, designers and actuaries to create state of the art web based financial applications.
A seasoned sales and e-business specialist, Neal also held key roles at The New York Times and Lucent Technologies. Neal sits on the board of advisors for the Casual Games Association and frequently speaks at key industry events.
Executive Producer Oberon Media
USA
Since 1999 David Nixon has dedicated himself to pioneering new ways for our "casual" games to reach new audiences.
In 1999, with RealArcade, he was one of the first to see the potential of "try before you buy". In 2000 he was one of the first to attempt "2nd Party" publishing. In 2001 he was looking to Eastern Europe as a source of commercially viable PC games, inspiring game developers around the world to participate in the amazing opportunities this category offered. In 2004 he helped catapult Oberon Media onto the casual games world stage. 2005 found David evangelizing "console casual" games with his central role in the launch of Xbox Live Arcade.
Now, in 2010 he works to revitalize the role of "web games" in the casual games sector, expanding the role of online communities in the future of our industry. He currently works as Executive Producer at Oberon Media.
Managing Director Cliffhanger Productions
Germany
Jan Wagner has been involved in the industry for over 15 years with his experience spanning marketing, PR and product management along with QA, localization, producing and game design. He was Head of Product Management at Vivendi Universal Games and worked on over 100 titles during this time including Half Life, Warcraft, Empire Earth and Diablo. Trying to get back to the creative side of the industry, he co-founded a consulting agency whose customers included Blizzard Europe, Vivendi Universal, Massive Development, Tilted Mill and JoWooD and worked on titles like SpellForce, Gothic and Ground Control. He went on to found Cliffhanger Productions, a production studio, with his partner Michael Paeck in 2006 trying to support the creation of more original games. They produced titles like the Casual MMO 7Million and Risen and worked on other projects with partners like Sony, Take2, KochMedia and Like Dynamite.
Jan is a co-founder of a local initiative called gamearea frankfurtrheinmain and jury member for the German Developer’s Award, the German Games Award and the European Innovative Games Award. He never won one of those though.
CEO Everyplay Ltd.
Finland
Jussi is the CEO and founder of Everyplay, a social gaming startup, developing a portfolio of titles for Facebook including Kamu World, a virtual world. Before founding Everyplay, he was the business development director for Bugbear Entertainment, a leading racing game developer. In his role at Bugbear, Jussi closed several multimillion-euro game deals, produced console and handheld games, introduced agile processes and filled the dishwasher.
For over 15 years, Jussi has been an entrepreneur and the main organizer of ASSEMBLY, an annual 5000 person demo/LAN party in Finland. He is also the vice-chairman of the Finnish Association of Game Developers.
V.P. of Marketing Glu Mobile
USA
For the past 15 years, Breslin has led the marketing and communications programs for some of the video game industry’s most prolific and best selling mobile, iPhone, console and PC titles. As Vice President of Marketing for Glu, Breslin is responsible for the marketing, communications and public relations for the world`s leading mobile games publisher. He has utilized his deep gaming experience and proven communication strategies to successfully manage the marketing of Glu's vast roster of top smartphone and tablet titles.
Founder PocketGamer
United Kingdom
After ten years in the publishing industry serving his time as senior editor at Future Publishing and creative director of JPP, Chris founded Steel Media in December 2005 to explore developing areas of technology and create consumer-facing editorial brands that could make a difference. The first launch, Pocket Gamer was intended to provide a professional, credible and engaging publishing treatment to the mobile games market and two years later has done just that. Not only has PocketGamer.co.uk developed into a respected industry standard and Europe's leading online mobile games destination, it has also spawned a trade-focused b2b portal PocketGamer.biz, a regular magazine (published in partnership with leading UK mobile operators) and syndicates professional editorial to the likes of Samsung, Vodafone Live and O2.
Currently Chris is overseeing the expansion of Pocket Gamer into other territories as well as applying Steel Media's professional publishing approach to other neglected sectors.