SWERY HIDETAKA SUEHIRO
White Owls, CEO

One of Japan’s representative indie developers. He continues to create unique, spirited work based on the slogan: “From Osaka to all of YOU around the world.” His newest game “The MISSING – J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories” was lauded as a “very important game” by many media sources and received high praise internationally, such as winning both the Original Adventure Game and the Original or Adapted Song categories of the NAVTR Award. The MISSING was also nominated for the “Games for Impact” category in The Game Awards 2018. His other representative works include “Deadly Premonition,” “D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die,” and “Spy Fiction.” His next game, “The Good Life,” is scheduled for release in 2019. Swery is known for its quirky style and dark humour, while exploring at the same important themes and delicate issues.

IKUMI NAKAMURA
Creative Director

Ikumi Nakamura is a Japanese video game industry professional with over 14 years of experience in the field of concept design and creation of worlds/universes, stories, environments and characters. Recent titles include Creative Director for GhostWire: Tokyo recently announced at E3, lead artist on Evil Within, concept designer for Bayonetta, and environment artist for Okami.  She is passionate about creating new IPs and bringing new imaginative worlds to life.

David is the Founder of Women in Games WIGJ and BAME in Games, He is a Diversity Advocate and passionate about Women in Esports; He is also CEO of Interactive, specialising in global games executive search and diversity, particularly recruiting more women and minorities and building world-class teams; He is a BAFTA member.

Having been within the Games and exhibition Industry since 1997, Frank Sliwka has been recognized with the German Game Developer Award and the European Games Award.
With 24+ years of corporate leadership and entrepreneurship in the media, gaming and exhibition industries, Frank Sliwka has a verifiable history of commitment to growth and expansion of businesses in both mature and emerging markets across the Asia Pacific Region, the US, and Europe. He established GDC Europe as one of the most important game industry conferences in the world and Games Convention Asia (GC Asia) as one of the main industry events in Asia.  

As HPE Digital Video Services (DVS) Global Architect, over the last nine years, Marco has been instrumental in all the major Digital Media initiatives. He coordinates all the world wide products developments, technical proposals, exhibitions demonstrations and customer-facing events.

As Responsible for all the HPE Media Lab demos and Technical Lead for ANG she is driving the Video Production Solutions definition. Giovanna has a degree in Telecommunications Engineering. In 2010 she collaborates with Vision Research Lab at University of California Santa Barbara. In 2011 she joins Multimedia Lab at Eurecom, Sophia Antipolis. She is part of Digital Video Services at HPE from 2012.

ITobias Kopka is the Artistic Director of Ludicious Zürich Game Festival and Head of Developer Relations at Reboot Develop in Croatia & Canada and thus leading some of not only Europe´s finest game developer conferences. Tobias has been heading the Conference & Program Direction of  Quo Vadis. Create. Game. Business (Berlin) and Respawn – Gathering of Game Developers (Cologne) for more than five years and is curating conferences and professional events with his vast background in tech, art and science for more than 10 years.

IAN LIVINGSTONE
Sumo Digital, CEO

Ian Livingstone CBE, Chairman Sumo Digital, Co-founder Games Workshop and BAFTA Award winner has been announced as the first speaker of Gamerome, Rome Developers Conference. Ian has been described as ‘one of the founding fathers of the UK games industry’. He was the mastermind behind such iconic brands as Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. He will give an entertaining and visual account of his struggles as an entrepreneur in the 1970s when he and Steve Jackson set up Games Workshop, launched Dungeons & Dragons in Europe, and wrote the multi-million selling Fighting Fantasy gamebooks series. From analogue to digital, he will give a brief history of computer games, past, present and future, detailing how ‘digital’ has transformed customer habits and business models, expanding video games from a niche market to a $130 billion global entertainment industry.

DON DAGLOW
Director, Strategic Partnerships, The Strong & President, AIAS Foundation

Don Daglow is a three-time Inc. 500™ CEO, a pioneering game designer and 2008 Technical Emmy® Award recipient whose career spans the history of the games industry. Teams have shipped over $1 billion in products under his leadership. He advises game companies and software startups, coaching both new and experienced CEO’s and teams facing the challenges of game development, team-building, studio management and change. His clients range from small startups to large international publishers, and he also advises The Strong Museum and serves as the volunteer President of The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Foundation, the charitable wing of the Academy. He is the only executive in the history of the games industry who has held leadership positions on every generation of video game consoles, from 1980 to the present.

HENDRIK LESSER
CEO, Remote Control Productions – President, EGDF

Serial entrepreneur Hendrik is well known as CEO of the international production house remote control productions and President of the EGDF. After starting out in the industry as a Producer and Product Manager he has been building a family of independent development studios throughout Europe for over 13 years, which today consists of 13 teams in five countries with more than 270 passionate game makers. Hendrik is also a co-founder and Executive Producer of Chimera Entertainment, the 60 heads strong development studio behind the AAA mobile productions Angry Birds Evolution and Angry Birds Epic (100+ million downloads) and a yet to be announced title. Besides his roles as CEO and producer, Hendrik also is an avid lobbyist for the political and academic acceptance of video games as goods of cultural value.

MARIE CLAIRE ISAAMAN
CEO, Women in Games (WIGJ)

Marie-Claire Isaaman is CEO of Women in Games (WIGJ) a not for profit organization working in service of achieving full and lasting equality for all women, of any age, of any race, of any background, any ethnicity, any sexual orientation. throughout the game industries and beyond. She engages with a wide range of businesses and organization as a consultant and researcher. She is named in The Market for Computer and Video Games (MCV) 2014, 2015 Annual Top 100 UK Women in Video Games list – TIGA Games Industry Diversity Award 2017 – The GamesIndustry.Biz 100 most influential people in Video Games list 2019 – Kate Edward’s Global’ 50 over 50’s list 2019. As CEO of Women in Games she was presented with a special Award at GameRome 2018 for her work on diversity in the sector. An Industry Fellow for InGame 2019, a UK AHRC research Project. And she is a Trustee for several organisations, OCA [Open College of the Arts] – Orto Stella Charity a UK based Charity Empowering Women Lives After Domestic Abuse. And a Trustee of the BGI [Championing British Games Culture].

KATE EDWARDS
Geogrify, CEO

Kate is a 26-year veteran and an outspoken, award-winning advocate of the game industry and the former Executive Director of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA). While serving in many advisory/board roles, she is also a geographer and corporate strategist who pioneered and specializes in content culturalization. Following 13 years at Microsoft, she has consulted on many game and non-game projects for BioWare, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Ubisoft, and many other companies. In 2018, she was honored with Reboot Develop’s annual Hero Award and presented with IndieCade’s annual Game Changer Award. She was also profiled in the December 2018 publication Women in Gaming: 100 Professionals of Play.

MARCO RIZZOTTI
Senior Character Artist, Wooga

Marco Rizzotti is a Character Designer with more than 10 years of experience as a traditional sculptor and has won 18 international awards for his work. After a career as a modeler for figurines at modeling companies, he joined the gaming industry where he has been working for companies like Goodgame Studios, Envision Entertainment/EA Phenomic and King. At King he was responsible for the character production pipeline at the Berlin Studio for titles like Candy Crush Jelly and Candy Crush Friends. Recently Marco joined Wooga, a market leader for story-driven casual games like June’s Journey, as a Senior Character Artist.

MATT HOOPER
Director of Development, Oculus

ALESSANDRA VAN OTTERLO
Control Magazine/European Game Showcase at GDC

BROOKE VAN DUSEN
Vice President of Business Development, Xsolla

Brooke is the Vice President of Business Development at Xsolla, where he is responsible for helping independent studios successfully publish their PC titles. Previously, he led marketing and community efforts for Benchmark and Time Warner backed Outpost Games, and spent six years scaling Twitch from launch through acquisition by Amazon.

ANDJELA KUSMUK
Amazon Web Services Startup Biz Dev Manager, Northern Europe

Andjela Kusmuk is the multientrepreneur and momager of European esports. Leaving her own gaming and game review career behind, she built up the social media presence and partner relations of organizations like Ninjas in Pyjamas and created go to market campaigns for a variety of products including IGN Nordic and peripherals brand Xtrfy and currently part of the advisory board for The Final Tribe and Games Startup Business Development Manager for Amazon Web Services. She joins us in Gamerome to help you understand why your esport marketing isn’t flying the way that it should, and what could be done to improve your presence online. A strong believer in women’s rights in the field of gaming, she’s one of the most vibrant advocates of equality in games.

HANS IPPISCH
Intellivision Entertainment President of European Operations

Hans started his career in the gaming industry 33 years ago back in 1986, being one of the first German developers working on Commodore 64 and Amiga titles like “Soldier!”, “Danger Freak”, “Rock ́n Roll” and “Kangarudy”. In total his games sold more than 700,000 times. In 1991 he joined Computec Media as freelance writer and worked his way up to become CEO of Germany ́s biggest gaming media house and transforming a traditional publisher to a leading media digital media company with a reach of 10 million users. In June 2019 Hans returned to his roots – becoming President of European Operations of Intellivision Entertaiment and overseeing all European sales, marketing activities including the production of exclusive Intellivision Amico games from Europe.

ANDREA RIZZI
Partner, Interactive Entertainment, Digital Media & Technology, Insight Legal

Andrea is a dual qualified (Italy; UK) all-round commercial/intellectual property and information technology lawyer and his practice focuses on assisting video game and esports industry clients. Before joining Insight in 2018, Andrea led the Italy’s TMT practice of an international law firm and prior to that he worked as in house counsel in the legal and business affairs team of Take-Two Interactive, the owner the Rockstar and 2K labels, and of Activision Blizzard. Andrea also lectures Queen Mary University of London LL.M. students on video game and interactive entertainment law and regularly speaks at international conferences on the law and business of video games and esports.

NICOLETTA SERAO
Associate, Interactive Entertainment, Digital Media & Technology, Insight Legal

Nicoletta is a lawyer specialized in intellectual property and information technology. Prior to joining Insight as an associate, Nicoletta worked in-house for an international TV broadcaster, focusing on content protection, ISP platform’s liability and cybersecurity as well as for an international law firm. As a digital business lawyer, Nicoletta focuses on OTT platform’s liability & regulation, including e-commerce compliance, advertising, audio-visual content regulation, data protection as well as B2B and B2C agreements. Her most current interests lie in the video game and esports industries and the related laws and regulations.

IVAN VENTURI
IV PRODUCTIONS, CEO and Founder, Pride Run Game Director

GIACOMO GUCCINELLI
Pride Run Art Director, Pisa LGBT Center Activist

MAURO COPETA
Pride Run Musician & Content Director; Bologna LGBT Center Artistic Director

TSAHI LIBERMAN
Head of Business Development and Marketing, Simpool

MAURIZIO MANZIERI
Cover Artist Italian teacher of Digital Illustration in Turin, Italy

Maurizio Manzieri, Chesley Award Winner and Spectrum Alumnus, renowned international Cover Artist and Italian teacher of Digital Illustration in Turin, Italy, is confirmed as Gamerome 2019 Speaker! During an exclusive workshop, he’ll be pleased to share his techniques of work, talking about recent illustrations in the fantastic editorial field and the magic surrounding his multi-awarded career.

FLAVIA CECCARELLI
Art Manager , Oculus

Former Art Director in King, Flavia started her career in publishing has been leading artists in games for over 10 years, successfully shaping and growing teams across a multitude of renowned casual and mobile titles such as Pet Society, The Sims and Farm Heroes and a diverse range of successful casual and mobile titles. Passionate about creating outstanding art and establishing the right product vision, Flavia is a proven leader, specialised in building and growing art teams with a strong focus on promoting a culture of trust, excellence and knowledge sharing. In her times at King, Flavia developed expertise in creative and franchise development, managing the art workflow while empowering talents with training and mentoring other artists. She’s also involved  in outsourcing planning and strategy and is experienced in working with licensed products and external partners.

PAWEL ROHLEDER
Techland Chief Technology Officer

Pawel Rohleder is a highly experienced developer, manager and video games enthusiast who is keen on new technologies. Over 15+ years in the game development industry, of which the last 11 years are with Techland (Dying Light, Dead Island, Call of Juarez). Participated in both original DLs, both DIs and all four CoJ games from start to finish. Has experience in almost every part of game development, from concept creation to QA, all the way through to even composing in-game music. Is a regularly invited and highly experienced speaker at 60+ gaming and technology conferences. Currently manages a team of 30+ professionals developing cutting-edge technology for games across multiple platforms. Is crazy about synergy between technology, science, business and art – and even did a PhD to prove such synergy exists. Loves new challenges and taking on “the impossible”.

MARTINE SPAANS
Tamalaki, Owner

Martine Spaans started her career in online gaming over a decade ago and has worked for well-known companies like Spil Games and Ubisoft before setting up her own Mobile Publishing company. She has worked with more than 1000 developers and has taught herself a good understanding of gamers needs. She’s become an expert in the field of game design for women, and Hidden Object, Match-3,Time Management and Simulation games in particular. She has now her own Android company and runs F2P Publishing label Tamalaki.com and published more than 100 games. Their portfolio consists of games mainly appealing to an audience of women 40+ in Europe and in the US. In cooperation with FGL.com she helps indie developers to push their games to a diversity of app stores.

VALENTINA TAMER
King, Game & Narrative Designer

Valentina is a Game Designer and Studio Narrative Designer at King Berlin, working on the developer’s Candy Crush franchise. Previously employed at Daedalic Entertainment, she was Assistant Creative Lead and writer on “Ken Follett’s: The Pillars of the Earth”, a story-driven adventure based on the best-selling novel by the same title. She has also served as an additional writer on “The Night of the Rabbit”, a fantasy point-and-click adventure, released May 28th 2013.. She holds a B.Sc in Game Design from MD.H Düsseldorf, having published her thesis as the eBook “Directing Games: Fantasies of Disempowerment”, a collection of purposefully disempowering mechanisms used in video games and analyses the reasons why players might be drawn to this experience.

JORGE ROSALES
Business Development at Nutaku

Jorge Rosales is a Mechanical Engineer with an MBA specialized in Marketing, 15 years of commercial experience in different industries such as animal feed, military manufacturing and plastics, not only as a Sales Executive but also performing Managerial roles. During the last year and a half, He’s been working as Business Development at Nutaku.

MEA NILIMAA
Raw Fury, Producer

Mea Nilimaa is an Operations Specialist with a decade of experience in the Games Industry specializing in Project Management. Currently a Producer at Raw Fury She’s working on a number of different indie games, but with her background in companies such as Electronic Arts, Paradox Interactive and Avalanche Studios in various roles working on AAA games she’s got insight into a lot of different parts of development.
With an organizational psychology educational background, she burns for employee happiness and she shares her knowledge by volunteering on boards such as the Swedish Association for Victim Support and prevention against crimes.

NICOLAE BERBECE
Those Awesome Guys, Founder

Nicolae is an indie game developer from VampireLand (Romania) and the designer of Move or Die, the friendship ruining party game. He founded his own company “Those Awesome Guys”, where he teams up with developers from all over the world in order to create experimental & highly polished games. His company is now an indie publishing one as well, helping out other developers with their marketing endeavors. “Monster Prom” being their first victim. Nick has previously spoken at GDC, GIC, Sweden Game Conference, Devcom and many more events across the globe.

DANIELE FALCONE
Publishing Director, VLG

Daniele starts his career in the video games industry in 2000 with Multiplayer.it. He organized the ITP translation team which took care of the localization from English into Italian of some most important RPG Games of the time. The experience gained led him to Koch Media as Product Manager. He also served as Marketing Manager for Games, taking care of all the digital sales. With over 300 games launched on the market, He worked with AAA Publishers such as Bethesda, Square Enix, Deep Silver, Sega and Codemasters. He’s now serving as Publishing Director of VLG, a Publishing Service Company in the Gaming and New Media Industries, with special attention to new techs like VR, AR and AI, focused on bringing the audience memorable interactive entertainment for PC, console and mobile.