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LONDON GAMES CONFERENCE: SPEAKER PROFILES
Speakers’
corner
The London Games Conference boasts the cream of the games industry as key speakers. Here’s a rundown of those on board…
Ed Vaizey Shadow Minister for Culture
Phil Harrison Former president of SCE Worldwide Studios
Nick Parker Founder and Director, Parker Consulting
Stuart Dinsey Managing Director, Intent Media
Kristian Segerstrale CEO and co-founder, Playfish
Ed Vaizey was elected as the MP for Wantage and Didcot in May 2005. Since November 2006, he has been the Conservative Party’s Shadow Minister for Culture. He is already well known within the games industry for having strong views on its cultural and commercial significance. He tells MCV: “I’m delighted to be speaking to the London Games Conference. The games sector is one of the most successful creative industries in the UK, but it has been forgotten by Government. “While Canada and France aggressively compete to attract talent, all our politicians can talk about is video games violence. “Yet games should be a dream for a politician – it recruits people qualified in difficult subjects, like maths and computer science; it’s regional; and it’s successful and worldbeating. Government backing should be a nobrainer.”
In 1992, Phil Harrison became the the first employee of Sony’s game business in Europe. Over the next 16 years he held senior management positions in Europe and the US and played a key role in the launch of PlayStation 1, 2 and 3 as well as the PSP. In 2000, after a four year spell as vice president at Sony Computer Entertainment America, he returned to Europe as executive vice president of SCEE’s development resource. In this position, he oversaw the introduction of game-changing franchises such as EyeToy and SingStar – now deservedly looked back on as the time casual console gaming was born. In 2005 he became president of SCE Worldwide Studios. He left Sony in 2008 a modern development legend – but soon reemerged as president of a reinvigorated, onlinefocused Atari alongside David Gardner. Although he resigned from day-to-day management of the publisher a year later he continues to serve as a board member of the public company. He currently divides his time between looking after his young family and advising various entertainment, media and technology companies.
After a spell as head of business analysis for Nintendo, Nick Parker joined Sony Computer Entertainment Europe as the division’s ‘numbers man’ (otherwise known as VP, strategic planning) and was instrumental in the launches of the PlayStation and PS2. He then set up Atari’s online casual gaming site, gamenation.com, before founding Parker Consulting. The company is now recognised as the European games industry’s foremost strategic business consultancy specialising in research and forecasting.
A business journalist and media owner for 23 years, Stuart Dinsey entered the video games industry via Computer Trade Weekly (CTW) in April 1986, becoming editor in 1988 and holding the role for a further ten years. Dinsey founded entertainment and leisure specialist Intent Media in 1998. His first launch was the market-leading publication and B2B website, MCV. Intent Media has developed into one of the UK’s leading business media specialists. Via a mixture of organic launches and acquisition, Dinsey has developed Intent’s print, online and events portfolio across a variety of sectors.
Playfish is one of the largest and fastest growing social games companies in the world – and, if reports are to be believed, one of the most watched by industry giants hungry for an acquisition. As an experienced games entrepreneur, company founder Kristian Segerstrale brings strategic vision and expertise in leadership of creative teams and corporate growth to the company. Prior to founding Playfish in late 2007, Kristian was a cofounder and later managing director of Europe, Middle East and Asia (EMEA) for Glu Mobile, a leading global publisher of mobile games. During his tenure there he forged key licensor relationship across Europe with leading companies such as Konami, Celador and Codemasters among others.
Mark Gerhard CEO, Jagex Mark Gerhard joined Jagex in February 2008 from GTECH where he served as the principle security architect for the National Lottery. He has over 14 years’ experience in the technology sector.