A Spark Of Awareness

According to studies in the US and Europe in 2021, 1 out of 5 of your employees are experiencing a diagnosable mental illness, 53% are saying that their work or work environment negatively impacts their mental health. While it is an uncomfortable topic for company leaders, we cannot ignore the fact that it is happening on a global scale. What can we do about it and where is the line to draw betwee...

Netflix has been in the spotlight since it announced its game platform. How do you approach building a portfolio of games for an entertainment platform? What are the skills required as a Publisher vs a Developer? How do you select the game developers who will be the best partners from the point of view of a publisher? Leanne Loombe has extensive career developing and publishing games over the past...

DEI has been a buzzword over the past few years. It has been overused as an employer branding strategy or an attempt to correct inequality in the workplace. But implementing a DEI department, DEI initiatives or training won't resolve the root of the inequality gap. Durable changes start at the company's core (and top): Why do you exist? What is your mission and why caring about DEI will support yo...

We meet again in this episode with Joakim Achrén, founder of Elite Game Developers , to break the myth of the stressful busy entrepreneur, and that it is actually not good for you. Why is this so hard to talk openly about mental burnout among entrepreneurs and leaders? Why are we holding on that image of control? What's happening under the surface, and what are the long-term consequences in the lo...

In this new segment of Rise and Play, I sit down with my business partner Miska Katkoff, CEO at Savage Games , and the founder of Deconstructor of Fun.   In those episodes, we will be sparring thoughts with Miska, reflecting on our leadership work at Savage. Full video of the talk: https://youtu.be/HwlPik-s8kk Kicking off this segment, we tackle in this episode "How to plan your next career moves?...

Marie Mejerwall has an extensive career in gaming and design. She started in esports in 2001 and in game development in 2008 and has been involved in both ever since. During her career, she worked at studios such as Ubisoft, Warner  Bros, Eidos, and Capcom and climbed to become a game director. Today, she is an advisor to game studios, publishers, and esports companies, and a popular host and even...

Perfect timing for this episode, ending the year with reflection thoughts and taking a step back on your life vision ! In this episode, we discuss with Tom Hammond (serial entrepreneur in games) a few exercises to help you gain clarity on your life vision: Why do you work, what do you live for? What are your priorities in life (when you are not working)? How are you building a company that will ou...

Isabelle Henriques has an impressive track record in games: 15 years of experience in management, operations, strategy, and production in the gaming industry. She is Brazilian and has a diverse background in gaming, previously acting as Studio Director and Lead Producer at Maxis and Electronic Arts, and has worked on multiple AAA blockbuster franchises including The Sims, Call of Duty, and Madden....

Forest Swartout-Large is the co-founder & COO at Twin Suns Corp, a new fully remote, global video game studio developing action games for console and PC, leveraging existing IPs. Previously, Forest worked on Tomb Raider, Inside, and Hitman , and most recently shipped Hitman III as the Executive Producer. With their new company, Forest aims to make AAA game development more ethical, inclusive,...

Should the leader of today be a coach? That's what we cover in this episode with Aaron and Ben, ex-leaders at Riot Games. They are now running a consultancy organization called Valarin to grow holistic leaders across companies and our industry because better leaders make better games.   Sharing the same mission as Rise and Play, that's how the three of us met in this episode. We are going back to...

Join us for a special and meta episode on... how to make podcasts! Have you ever considered starting your own podcast, and why should you consider a podcast to create content? That's what we are deconstructing with Lauren Kaye, the founder and host of the podcast She Plays Games. I was so happy to connect with another female podcaster in games, as we are very rare! Learn what you should consider b...

Marko Kecman was my ex Studio co-Lead at Voodoo. During our collaboration time at Voodoo, we spent long hours of thoughtful conversations to rethink how we could make our 1:1s meetings meaningful and impactful. It started with a simple question: What are the 1:1s for? Is it for us (as a manager), or for the people to grow? The format highly depends on what the goal is. We are sharing in this episo...

Julia Palatovska is the co-founder and CEO of Dorian , a new creator platform that enables anyone to turn fiction into games and make money out of them! With Dorian, Julia's team is democratizing how digital stories are created (no-code platform), empowering storytellers from all around the world to tell the stories that deserve to be told. Julia shares her journey as an entrepreneur, from Ukraine...

Lauren Clinnick is the CEO and co-founder at Lumi Interactive, an Australian, female-founded mobile game studio focused on games that make the world a kinder place. With a focus on social connection and well-being, their latest plant-focused title Kinder World is in development for iOS and Android for a global release in late 2022. Lauren shares her journey, failures, and learning building the gam...

Who hasn't played The Sims when they were young? The Sims has been part of our lives over the past 20 years and has evolved with our times as we evolved as a society. Join my conversation with Catharina Lavers-Mallet, VP/GM of The Sims & Maxis at EA. We talk about team culture, distributed teams at scale, and the evolution of The Sims franchise.  Prior to EA, Catharina also acted as General Ma...

This is our first episode format with 2 guests, addressing the misunderstood and unspoken topics of motherhood and leadership. Betty and Emily share their personal journey as former Executives in big companies (Google, EA, Glu mobile), and what led them to build their own businesses once they became mothers. You will get insights into what is really happening when your employee goes through the ex...

Vanessa Rouhani hasn't started her career in games or business. Still, she climbed the career ladders step-by-step thanks to her curiosity, and constant drive to learn and grow, which led her to become the SVP of Publishing and Product Marketing at Jam City . Vanessa shares how she is leading her marketing team at Jam City, focusing on people first while driving results. She also shares openly her...

Julie Beaugrand, former VP North Americas Studios at Gameloft and Head of Studio of Toronto, shares her journey building a new game studio at Rovio on a mission to crack the next casual hit game. From her 6 years running a successful large studio in Toronto, operating the hit game Disney Magic Kingdom , she took those learnings to build her new dream team. Take away from this episode how to start...

Take away from this episode how to think differently about money as an instrument to fulfill your life vision. Do you work for money or is money working for you? I am debunking the key misconceptions about money and personal finances with Marcela Barrera, the founder of Investors Abroad and financial coach. Are you diversifying your portfolio of assets? Have you started to invest? Do you know the...

Hear Jennifer Lufau's insights on how you can effectively repair racial inequality in your organization, and be part of the change too. Jennifer shares her journey as a young player, not finding representation of herself in games, and what motivated her to later fund the non-profit organization Afrogameuses . Jennifer experienced racism playing online games. She could have remained a silent victim...

In this new season, I am kicking off a series of episodes in the format of coaching discussions, with experts on leadership and self-development themes.  Today, I am sitting down with Tamara Rose, the Founder of Berlin Boss Babes, and a High-Potential and Leadership Coach for women. Berlin Boss Babes' mission is focused on accelerating female advancement across career, business, and money. Prior t...

I am kicking off a new season for Rise and Play with our special guest Maria Sayans, the CEO at Ustwo Games . Maria has been helping games companies succeed in the digital space, build great brands, launch games and engage players for nearly two decades. She spent 14 years at EA building online functions and on marketing leadership roles for franchises like Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Dead Space, Sta...

This episode is all about how to build a culture attractive for A-players dedicated to achieving big goals. You don’t want to miss it! I am talking to Valerie Alfimova who is the CRO at Appodeal Stack, a mobile AdTech and gaming group of companies. Appodeal Stacks’s mission is to enable creators to start and scale successful mobile app businesses.  Valerie is a global sales and marketing executive...

Bakyt Aidaralieva is a product management and player experience executive with 9+ years of experience supporting players, leading teams and building tools in companies like Supercell, EA, PlayRaven and Rovio in the Finnish Games Industry. Among the hit mobile games Bakyt has worked with are Hay Day, Clash of Clans, Boom Beach and Simcity Build It . She has built player support and community functi...

Salone Sehgal is the world's first female General Partner of a games and interactive VC fund. She co-founded Lumikai Fund, India's first early-stage interactive media and gaming VC, anchored by the world's largest games and media conglomerates. She has 15+ years of experience as a global games & new media investor, games entrepreneur, and former M&A banker. Previously, she was Principal at...