Akili Interactive
Matt Omernick, Co-Founder & Chief Creative Officer

Co-Founder & Chief Creative Officer

Prior to co-founding Akili, Matt Omernick served as Executive Art Director at LucasArts, the video game division of Lucasfilm. Matt oversaw studio-wide art teams on multiple projects. Prior to LucasArts, he held senior positions at Microsoft, Dreamworks, Electronic Arts, and Day 1 Studios. Matt has shipped over 20 game titles including, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Mercenaries, Star Wars: Battlefront, and the critically acclaimed Medal of Honor franchise. He has spent over seven years teaching college-level computer graphics courses at Cal State, The Academy of Art University and the Art Institute of San Francisco. He also authored the book, “Creating the Art of the Game,” published in 2004, which has become an industry and educational standard.

Bethesda / ZeniMax
Simon Alty, Vice President & Managing Director Asia Pacific

Vice President & Managing Director Asia Pacific

Simon Alty has been a part of the global video games and entertainment industries for over 30 years and today, he leads the team representing Bethesda’s games across the Asia Pacific region. Coming to the fore as part of the pioneering Ocean Software team in the nineties, Simon developed his career with global gaming companies Infogrames/Atari, Rising Star Games and the 3DO Company before running award-winning business development and marketing consultancies in both Australia and the UK. A leader in today's rapidly changing creative business, Simon has an innate understanding of gaming and the consumer and this, combined with new thinking in developing strategy, has delivered repeated creative and commercial success. A passionate advocate of the global potential for video games, Simon has played a pivotal role in bringing hundreds of games to market – from V-Rally, Jurassic Park and Worms to The Elder Scrolls, Wolfenstein, Dishonored, Fallout, DOOM and now Deathloop, Ghost Wire: Tokyo, Redfall and Starfield.

Blizzard Entertainment
Sarah Delahanty, Cinematic Director

Cinematic Director

Sarah Delahanty currently oversees real-time cutscene design for World of Warcraft. As a veteran with over 13 years at AAA studios, Sarah has created gameplay trailers and in-game cutscenes for several renown games including Dungeons and Dragons Online, Lord of the Ring Online, WildStar, StarCraft II, and Heroes of the Storm. After a steady diet of video games and LEGOs at a young age, plus a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in Film/Animation/Video, Sarah was well prepared for the wild world of in-game cinematics.

Boomzap Entertainment
Allan Simonsen, Co-Founder & Technical Director

Co-Founder & Technical Director

Allan Simonsen is the co-founder and technical director of Boomzap, a totally virtual office running since 2005. He believes that a good programmer is a lazy programmer, that code quality matters and that life is not a zero-sum game.

Certain Affinity
Simon Mackenzie, Studio Narrative Director

Studio Narrative Director

Simon Mackenzie, Studio Narrative Director, Certain Affinity (USA) In a career spanning over 25 years in the entertainment industry, Simon Mackenzie has worked on AAA blockbusters such as Ubisoft’s Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Back 4 Blood, to more intimate, boundary pushing titles like DONTNOD’s Vampyr. He recently took the position of Studio Narrative Director at Certain Affinity to help create and develop original IPs.

Codashop
Guillaume Noé, Vice President, Marketing

Vice President, Marketing

Guillaume Noé has 15 years of experience in the games and software industries. Prior to joining Codashop, Guillaume was a marketing lead at Razer. Throughout his career, Guillaume has worked on enabling distribution for digital software, games, and services, transforming business models toward subscription, and leveraging data and AI to deliver engaging purchase experiences to customers worldwide. He has spent the last two years at Codashop helping accelerate its growth as a leading source for in-game and in-app currencies.

Arief Johan, Content Creator

Content Creator

Arief Johan is a content creator from Malaysia highlighting the Southeast Asian games ecosystem. He hosts a recurring live-stream on Twitch called Southeast Asia Nights where he works with regional developers and publishers to showcase indie-titles from the region with the goal of celebrating Southeast Asian voices in the games industry. To date, the project has showcased more than 14 titles from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand.

Embassy of Spain in Singapore
Antonio Garcia, Trade & Investment Commissioner

Trade & Investment Commissioner

Antonio Garcia has 15 years of experience working in Asia (Japan, Korea, Malaysia and now, Singapore) as Spanish Trade Commissioner at Spanish Embassies. He also worked in other fields, such as 10 years in private financial banking and investments and 8 years in the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Industry. He is an expert in finance, analytical skills, government, and international business with background in economics and CFA.

ESL Pro League
Hans Jagnow, Vice President Operations

Vice President Operations

Hans Jagnow is the VP Operations for the ESL Pro League and the Louvre Agreement. He joined the Commissioner’s Office at its inception in 2020 after several years as President of the German Esports Federation and initiator of the European Federation. Previously, he was President of Esports Europe in Brussels and has been heavily involved in shaping Germany’s digital and data policies through many years of work as a legal expert in Berlin state politics.

Ex-Mighty Eagle of Angry Birds (Rovio)
Peter Vesterbacka, Ex-Mighty Eagle of Angry Birds (Rovio)

Founder

Peter Vesterbacka is an entrepreneur from the Finest Bay Area at the Heart of Eurasia, Helsinki, Finland. Branded communities co-created and initiated by Peter include the HP Bazaar, Mobile Monday, Slush and Startup Sauna, to name a few. Peter was the Mighty Eagle at Angry Birds for many years, taking the brand to unprecedented heights. Peter is also currently adjunct professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Tongji University, one of the leading universities in China. In 2011, Time Magazine named Peter one of the 100 most influential people on the planet.

GameDriver
Shane Evans, Chief Product Officer

Chief Product Officer

Shane Evans is a career tester and was a product leader in the enterprise software Testing space for more than 10 years. He is a lifelong gamer and passionate about quality.

Gank Global
Darrell Sin, Regional Partnership Director

Regional Partnership Director

Darrell Sin is a devotee of the GAMING AND ESPORTS industry, who constantly seeks new ways to discover new frontiers for the generations of gamers to come. He currently works as the Regional Partnerships Director for Gank Global, which helps content creators all over Southeast Asia to earn more from their content by innovating new and efficient ways to thrive in the competitive content, gaming and esports industry.

Kepler Interactive
Catherine Chew, Investment Director

Investment Director

Catherine Chew is the Investment Director at Kepler Interactive, a global game developer and publisher, making majority and minority investments into mid-sized independent studios. She is also a co-founder of Game Changers, a webinar series featuring exceptional women in the gaming industry. Cat has previously worked at King (Activision Blizzard), finance and consulting. She holds an MBA from London Business School and a BA from Cornell University.

Majamojo
Hahn Jungwon, Chief Executive Officer

Chief Executive Officer

Hahn Jungwon has over 25 years in gaming and is currently the CEO of Majamojo, a gaming JV created by Telkomsel and GoTo. Majamojo focuses on building the gaming ecosystem in Indonesia and plans to expand across Southeast Asia. His priority is to find the right strategy and product market fit for any games launched in a new region. Prior to Majamojo, Jungwon has held executive positions at Razer, Wargaming, Blizzard Entertainment and EA.

Meta0
Jason Fung, Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder

Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder

Jason Fung is the CEO and co-founder of Meta0. Jason is a graduate of the University of Toronto, where he received a BBA in Marketing and International Business. Prior to founding Meta0, Jason was the founder of TikTok's gaming business unit and their Global Head of Strategy and Operations. There, he grew the gaming vertical to reach hundreds of millions of users worldwide. In addition to holding top leadership positions at several tech startups, Jason was also a Senior Director at Alibaba. He specializes in creating business functions from scratch, which span from strategy and partnerships to content operations and creator programs.

Mojiken Studio
Brigitta Rena Estidianti, Co-Founder & Art Director

Co-Founder & Art Director

Brigitta Rena is a game artist from Surabaya, Indonesia. One of the co-founders of Mojiken Studio, she is also the creator of “When the Past was Around”, and writer of “A Space for the Unbound”. Through creating video games, Rena realized that she could communicate any of her thoughts and unspoken words. She enjoys making merchandise and designing fabric patterns. She is also a coffee lover and nature enthusiast.

MOONTON Games
Kelly Chiew, International Public Relations Manager

International Public Relations Manager

Kelly Chiew has years of experience in the communications field, and has worked extensively with financial, corporate, and technology clients before advancing into the esports and gaming industry. Prior to her exciting adventure with MOONTON Games, she has been gaming for over a decade, and is a huge fan of MMORPGs, JRPGs, and strategy games.

MYTONA
Olga Koriakina, Head of Marketing Creative

Head of Marketing Creative

Started as a Junior Creative Manager four years ago, Olga Koryakina is now the Head of Marketing Creative at MYTONA.

Nodding Head Games
Avichal Singh, Co-Founder & Game Director

Co-Founder & Game Director

Avichal Singh co-founded Nodding Heads Games along with Ian Maude and Shruti Ghosh, where they built one of India’s first successful premium console and PC titles, Raji: An Ancient Epic. Avichal co-wrote the story of Raji and takes care of game design, level design and project management. The studio was able to create its own niche in a market flooded by mobile games while putting India on the gamedev map. To date, Raji has been accredited with 36 nominations and 10 wins at prestigious events such as E3, The MIX, SXSW, Taipei Game Show, The Games Awards, Pegases and more. Prior to this, Avichal was with Zynga, where he worked on IPs like Farmville and Empires and Allies.

Nuvei
Kelvin Khoo, Vice President Sales – APAC

Vice President Sales – APAC

Kelvin Khoo has vast experience in building start-ups and serving in MNCs. He has a strong passion for driving growth in the payments industry, leadership, product development and driving GTM strategies across Asia Pacific. SME on payments for eCommerce, CNP and CP payment methods and transaction banking. He enjoys client dialogues, especially hearing wonderful success stories from like-minded individuals.

ONE Esports
Jane Guo, Vice President, Head of Analytics & Insights

Vice President, Head of Analytics & Insights

As the lead of the Analytics & Insights (A&I) function at ONE Esports, Jane Guo steers one of the most important parts of the business. Jane blazed a trail as the first data hire at ONE in 2018. She has since scaled her team to be a key dependent for ONE’s rapid growth. Under her leadership, the A&I team rigorously captures and analyses complex data sets to advise senior leaders on critical business challenges. Prior to ONE, Jane was with The Walt Disney Company, driving consumer and business insights in North Asia.

Overwolf
Jason Lee, Director of Business Development

Director of Business Development

Jason Lee is a California native working remotely from Seoul, South Korea. He currently works on partnerships with game developers and app developers for Overwolf's UGC solutions and developer framework. Jason began his career in the gaming industry working on Hollywood IP partnerships for a mobile game publisher. He then worked on business development for one of the biggest stats sites in gaming and led the launch of an app built on Overwolf. Seeing Overwolf's empowerment of UGC firsthand, Jason decided to take his partnership with Overwolf to the next level by joining the Wolf Pack. Jason graduated with a Bachelor's from Stanford.

Persona Theory Games
Saqina Latif, Co-Founder & Managing Director

Co-Founder & Managing Director

Saqina Latif is one of the three co-founders of Malaysian indie games studio, Persona Theory Games. The team proudly tells the Southeast Asian stories through games and other mediums. Prior to starting Persona Theory Games, Saqina was an award-winning producer in Leo Burnett KL, and worked with clients such as McDonald's, Samsung, AIA and more.

PixelAnt Games
Pawel Rohleder, Co-Founder & Studio Director

Co-Founder & Studio Director

Pawel Rohleder is a people-oriented game industry professional with background in software engineering. He believes in the importance of values-based company culture and co-founded PixelAnt Games to bring fun back into gamedev. Prior to this, Pawel was with Techland for 14 years and had participated in numerous AAA titles from start to finish, including Dying Light, Dying Light 2, Dead Island, Call of Juarez series, etc. He is also a regular speaker and has spoken at over 60 gaming and technology conferences.

Plug In Digital / Dear Villagers
Guillaume Jamet, Vice President & Head of Publishing

Vice President & Head of Publishing

Guillaume Jamet is a video game marketing veteran journeying through the industry since the early 00’s. He started his career as a video game journalist before turning to the dark side of marketing in the early 10’s, joining a PR agency as Head of Digital Communication, founding his own video game marketing company and co-founding Push Start, the cluster for video games professionals in South of France. After running his own publishing label, Guillaume is now managing all the publishing activities inside Plug In Digital, with a particular focus on Dear Villagers, an ambitious PC and consoles publishing branch.

Q-Games
Dylan Cuthbert, Chief Executive Officer

Chief Executive Officer

Dylan Cuthbert is an industry veteran of 30+ years. He has developed over 25 games, including smash hits for the likes of Nintendo and PlayStation, including the self-published PixelJunk series. Dylan founded Q-Games in 2001 which now consists of 50 passionate games developers.

Roblox
Duncan Campbell, Content Acquisition Manager

Content Acquisition Manager

Duncan Campbell is a game industry veteran of more than a decade in development and marketing. Now, he helps run the Game Fund at Roblox and ushering in the next frontier of the metaverse.

Secret 6
Hannah Donato, Senior Events Manager & Brand Coordinator

Senior Events Manager & Brand Coordinator

Hannah Donato started her career in Secret 6 as a game producer for mobile, PC, VR games and emerging tech in 2014. In 2018, she shifted to a marketing role and has been instrumental in facilitating Secret 6's brand development and awareness, and participation in various speaking engagements and game conventions locally and internationally. Most recently, her focus has been on PR, events and other marketing efforts for Secret 6's homegrown title, Project Xandata.

Sloclap
Theo Caselli, Game & Combat Designer

Game & Combat Designer

Théo Caselli is a combat designer from Sloclap, the independent studio behind Sifu and Absolver. He spearheaded the design of many of the core combat mechanics that made Sifu an indie success story of 2022. From a love of martial arts movies to fighting games and traditional beat'em ups, combat design has always been a long-time passion for Théo, that he brought to life while working on Sifu.

Springloaded
James Barnard, Founder & Lead Developer

Founder & Lead Developer

Having worked in the industry for over 20 years, James Bernard decided that corporate game development was no longer for him and started his own studio. 10 years later, he learned a lot about what it’s like to be a struggling indie, but also what its like to have the freedom to work on what you want with people you care about.

Streamline Studios Malaysia
Richard Cheah, Managing Director

Managing Director

Richard Cheah is passionate about training up leaders and building agile teams who can approach projects creatively. As Managing Director, Richard’s role encompasses recruitment, sales, project management and strategic planning for Streamline Studios Malaysia. He has worked on some of today’s most recognizable titles including Street Fighter, Final Fantasy and Oddworld. His experience has led him to lead non-gaming projects like virtual broadcast TV studios for BBC Sport and a virtual fashion show for Balenciaga. Richard has spoken at many regional and international industry events including Nordic Games and Level Up KL, and contributed to articles in Authority, DNA and IGN SEA.

Take-Two Interactive
Erik Ford, Vice President-Asia Publishing

Vice President-Asia Publishing

Erik Ford’s career in the APAC interactive entertainment industry has spanned over 25 years. During this time, he has worked on some of the biggest brands in the industry including Command and Conquer, Tomb Raider starring Lara Croft, Halo, Grand Theft Auto, and the NBA 2K Series. He has a MA in SE Asian studies from the National University of Singapore and an MBA from the MacQuarie Graduate School of Management.

TEA - Top Entertainment Agency
Fabriciano Bayo, Managing Director

Managing Director

Fabriciano started his career as Founder and CEO of the Spanish developer, Virtual Toys (over 80 released titles selling over 30 million copies worldwide). As the CEO, he was responsible for all areas related to business administration, such as legal, financial, marketing, contract negotiation, managing and coordinating several production studios located in different geographic locations, and had collaborated with companies like Disney, Pixar and Warner in the development of some of the most renowned IPs for companies such as Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Atari and Ubisoft. He was also the founder and first chairman of the Spanish Association of Video games Developers (“DEV”).

TEA - Top Entertainment Agency
Juan Tamargo, Managing Partner

Managing Partner

Juan Tamargo has a solid 20+ years of experience in the fields of business development and operations, with deep roots in game development and production. He started as game designer and 3D artist, and later became game director and producer where his roles evolved into marketing, sales and business management. He has worked for some of the most well-known video game companies in Spain, including Pyro Studios and Dinamic Multimedia, and produced titles like Runaway: A Road Adventure and La Prison, besides securing multiple international publishing and licensing deals, also leveraging funds from VCs.

TikTok
Zinnie Nguyen, Country Lead, TikTok Gaming SEA/ANZ

Country Lead

Zinnie Nguyen currently leads TikTok's gaming vertical SEA/ANZ team as the country lead. Along with her team, she helps gaming companies adopt media marketing with TikTok to drive growth in Southeast Asia. Prior to TikTok, Zinnie was with VNG for 7 years as a business development manager. Within her 10 years of experience, she had worked with many top gaming companies like Tencent, NetEase, Netmarble, NCSOFT, helping to license top performing games from China, Korea, Japan and build a strong publishing pipeline in the Southeast Asia market.

Ubisoft Singapore & Ubisoft Philippines
Darryl Long, Managing Director

Managing Director

Darryl Long is the Managing Director of Ubisoft Singapore and Ubisoft Philippines, the largest AAA studios in Southeast Asia. Under his leadership, the two studios set the standard for world-class game development in the region. With over 20 years in the gaming industry, Darryl has vast experience in AAA gaming tech and production. He played a vital role in the success of many of Ubisoft’s biggest brands, including Rainbow Six, Far Cry, and Ubisoft’s newest AAA IP: Skull and Bones. Previously, Darryl was Managing Director at Ubisoft Winnipeg, a studio he founded in 2018, where he built a highly talented and motivated tech team. He began his career with Ubisoft at Montreal in 2003.

Virtual SEA
Andreas Betsche, Founder & Editor-In-Chief

Founder & Editor-In-Chief

Andreas Betsche is the founder of Virtual SEA, an online media hub specialising in the coverage of Southeast Asian games. He is a passionate supporter of the local game development community, and his expertise has been sought for in various activities such as a judge for award shows and game jams, cross-media interviews, and podcasts.

VNG Corporation
Christopher Liu, Director of Game Investments

Director of Game Investments

Christopher Liu has over 10 years’ experience in the game business, focusing on Southeast Asia and North Asia regions. He had held roles in game operations and led business and investment teams.

Wizards of the Coast
Tim Fields, Senior Vice President & General Manager of Digital Gaming

Senior Vice President & General Manager of Digital Gaming

Tim Fields has been leading game development and publishing for more than 25 years. He had been a part of hit franchises like Call of Duty, Halo, Marvel Contest of Champions, Disney Mirrorverse, Need for Speed, Fast and Furious, Transformers: Forged to Fight, Dungeons and Dragons, and more, winning multiple editor’s choice and other awards and generated billions of dollars in earnings. He recently served as CEO of mobile game publisher, Kabam, and currently works at Wizards of the Coast, bringing beloved franchises to life as digital games. Tim authored five books on the games industry - the latest which entitled “Game Development 2042” will hit shelves in October 2022.

WolfEye Studios
Raphael Colantonio, President & Creative Director

President & Creative Director

Raphael Colantonio has been in the game industry since 1993, started with Electronic Arts, then founded Arkane Studios in 1999. Arkane Studios gained its fame with the RPG Arx Fatalis in 2002, Dark Messiah in 2005, Bioshock 2 co-development in 2009, Dishonored in 2012, Dishonored2 in 2016, and Prey in 2017. The studio received hundreds of awards. Raphael Colantonio sold Arkane to Zenimax and left for new adventures in 2017. He is now the President and Creative Director of WolfEye Studios and his specialties include creative direction, game mechanics, problem solving, level design, AI design, project management, pitching games and prototyping.

XBOX
Chia Jun Shen, Global Expansion Incubator Manager, Southeast Asia

Global Expansion Incubator Manager, Southeast Asia

Chia Jun Shen is a global expansion incubation manager at Xbox. He supports game creators, studios, and publishers of all sizes in the Southeast Asia region, helping bring their games and stories to the world through the Xbox ecosystem. A games-and-tech professional with 12 years industry experience across companies including Razer, Riot Games, Meta and now Microsoft, he is deeply passionate about empowering underrepresented communities, and championing diversity and inclusion as a means to transform the video games industry to be the best it can be.

Xsolla
Eric Lee, Business Development Manager

Business Development Manager

Eric Lee specializes in new payment solutions for Xsolla Business Development Manager. Prior to Xsolla, Eric worked for Smilegate, expanding game IPs through visual expansions. His experience with IP business expansion has allowed him to graft the latest tech with traditional businesses.

YouTube
“Zhi” Liang Chew, Senior Product Specialist, Gaming

Senior Product Specialist, Gaming

Zhi Liang Chew is a lifetime member of the fighting game community and passionate about preserving the beauty of arcade culture for the next generation of online players and viewers. He currently works as a Gaming Product Specialist at YouTube, launching products that empower gaming creators to build deeper connections with their fans through engaging video formats, monetization tools, and platform discovery.