Leadership Day 2019 by IGDA Finland

There are no dedicated games leadership conferences in Europe... so we decided to make one! Leadership Day by IGDA Finland, September 30th, 2019 in Helsinki, is an international event about how we build companies, teams and working cultures to build better games.

#cultureofsharing

Games companies, their inner workings and cultures are some of the least documented aspects of game development. Yet we and our work are all defined by these choices every single day. Join us in learning and challenging the cutting edge of leadership in games from some of the brightest minds in the industry!

Like all things IGDA Finland, the conference is non-profit and made possible by our volunteers and partners.

Less, but better

This one day event is designed around a thought provoking speaker track and ample room for networking with industry peers. We will be organising an IGDA Mentorship Cafe to help you grow your professional network and to finish it all off we’ll be throwing an evening party right next to the venue.

In cooperation with Women in Games Finland, there will be free daycare for children of conference attendees on-site, sponsored by Secret Exit Ltd.

Wilhelm Taht is an experienced business executive within online, mobile and social media. He has worked in the mobile games industry since 2004 in sales, marketing, product and general management roles, most recently spearheading Rovio's (the developer of Angry Birds) turnaround as EVP Games from 2016 to 2018. Wilhelm is currently acting as Advisor and Board Member at several privately held and public games companies, and running a boutique media and entertainment consultancy company: ”tldr consulting oy”. Wilhelm holds an M.Sc. in Economics from Hanken School of Economics in Helsinki and tweets occasionally @wilhelm_taht.

Voodoo

I am a creative lead with over ten years of experience in the mobile gaming industry. What makes me wake up everyday is creating new exciting game experiences that can reach millions of players, expanding the capabilities of mobile and technology. I am currently building a small creative and lean team with Voodoo in Berlin, to create that next unique experience.

Ubisoft Redlynx

Mirella Keto is an experienced and driven expert in organizational development and change management with strong people focus. She has a proven track record in driving growth in the games industry since 2012. She is a Master of Economics in Management and a certified bundle of joy. She is currently working as the Head of Organizational Development at Ubisoft RedLynx.

Mirella’s passion lies in bringing organizations to the next level with inclusive and iterative methods and she has accumulated heaps of experience in hosting workshops and training sessions in multiple Ubisoft studios around the world. Her positive and passionate approach to life and work is sure to inspire and leave no-one cold. She is currently super excited about brain based coaching and how to help people and organizations reach their full potential.

Supercell

Maria's passion since a young age has been to help others, which led her to develop a career in Customer Service. In 2013 she joined Supercell as a Vendor Manager in the Player Support team, allowing her to combine her passion for Customer Support and Games. She has since found her calling in the Corporate Social Responsibility team, in which she finds impactful ways to give back both locally and globally.

Supercell

Pietari is the Admin Lead at Supercell, handling people & office related things. Prior to joining Supercell in 2018 Pietari founded and ran several small mobile, gaming & ICT startups.

Redhill Games

Miloš has over 15 years of experience in game development working in both creative and production roles. He has worked across Europe in multicultural teams and environments on major blockbusters such as World of Tanks, Quantum Break and Mafia 2. In 2018 Miloš co-founded Redhill Games, a team of seasoned industry veterans based in Helsinki, Finland. He is the Executive Producer and hard at work on their first title, a tactical free to play shooter on PC.

Having lead both small 10 man teams up to large teams of over 500 developers, Miloš has unique insights on the industry and how games are made.

Futureplay Games

Chris Wilson takes care of marketing at Futureplay Games, having made the (relatively small) jump from apps to games a couple of years ago. In 2015, he co-founded the food-saving app Too Good To Go, the world’s largest movement against food waste. Now, he works with a small marketing team on all sorts of fun stuff, including strategic and impactful charity campaigns designed to give back to different areas of the global community.

When almost a million people are playing your games every single day, a real opportunity opens up to educate and inform on top, of course, providing great entertainment. Chris will talk about how social and in-game charity campaigns have helped raise awareness of pertinent global issues, all whilst keeping the tone upbeat and boosting Futureplay's games' and company's performance and brand.

Partners

This event wouldn’t be possible without help from our partners.

We are looking for sponsors for the event. If you’d like to help us take games leadership to another level please contact us and let’s talk!

You can see our sponsorship packages here.

Volunteers

We’ve been pushing since 2018 to make this event happen and still more needs doing. Drop us a line via firstname.lastname@igda.fi to join the fun!