Nicole Chen

Senior Creative Strategist, Brand Partnership Studio, Twitch

Nicole Chen is an Aussie creative who began her career at ad agencies in Sydney. Taking the world in her stride, she moved to London in 2014 and eventually joined Twitch's Brand Partnership Studio as a Senior Creative Strategist. In her role, she helps empower brands to create live, interactive experiences on the service. In her time at Twitch, she has worked with brands such as Nike, ITV, Domino's, Huawei, and more. Her background in advertising, art direction and design has meant that she has worked on a variety of notable campaigns over the years from TV to experiential to digital. She has also been a mentor and speaker for D&AD New Blood, Google RARE, Behance and The Dots during her career.

Isabel Davies

Associate, Wiggin

Isabel Davies is a lawyer specialising in video games and esports at media and entertainment law firm Wiggin LLP. Isabel has nearly a decade’s worth of games industry experience, previously working at Disney Interactive and King.

Isabel advises games businesses from up-and-coming indie developers all the way up to some of the largest interactive entertainment companies in the world. She advises on a range of matters, including commercial and intellectual property issues, but has a particular focus on regulatory matters impacting the games industry.

When not busy advising clients, she can often be found parked in front of her vibrantly-lit gaming PC.

Stephanie Ijoma

Founder, NNESAGA

Meet Stephanie Ijoma. CEO & Founder of U.K's leading premium gaming & entertainment platforms NNESAGA. NNESAGA focuses on championing diversity, inclusion, representation and equity for marginlised communities. Stephanie is also CEO and co-founder of U.K's first black owned Influencer & marketing Gaming/Tech agency; I.O.N Agency.

Arvind Hickman

Media Editor, Campaign

Fernanda Romano

Chief Marketing Officer, King

Carina Moran

Head of Strategy, Yahoo UK

Carina is currently Head of Strategy for Yahoo UK, ensuring solutions are strategically led, with consumer insights from Yahoo’s unique and diverse 1st party data at the core of everything. She also focuses on how those insights can translate into exciting partnership campaigns with creative tech, and ensures the dots are connected across the various parts of the Yahoo business. Prior to joining Yahoo (Verizon), Carina developed her love for brand strategy and implementation working inter across a number of prominent brands internationally as a Comms Planner at PHD Dublin, Havas New York and Mindshare London.

Amy Venier

Vice President, Gaming & Esports, Fandom

Amy Venier is Vice President, Gaming & Esports at Fandom, where she leads Fandom’s gaming and esports business working with endemic and non-endemic marketers.

Venier has been working with game companies for more than two decades, starting her career in gaming print and evolving into digital media, distributed content and business development. She joined Fandom in 2021 from Google, where she was part of the team that launched Stadia, Google’s first-ever cloud gaming platform. In this role, she oversaw partnerships with video game partners to bring their games to this new platform. Prior to Google, Venier held roles at GameSpot and Machinima, where she focused on media and branded content partnerships.

Fandom is the world’s largest fan platform where fans immerse themselves in imagined worlds across entertainment and gaming. Reaching more than 300 million unique visitors per month and hosting more than 250,000 wikis, Fandom.com is the #1 source for in-depth information on pop culture, gaming, TV and film, where fans learn about and celebrate their favorite fandoms. Fandom’s Gaming division manages its direct-to-consumer subscription businesses including the leading tabletop role-playing-game platform Dungeons & Dragons Beyond, which has more than 8 million registered users, and the online video game retailer Fanatical. Fandom Productions, the content arm of Fandom, enhances the fan experience through curated editorial coverage and branded content, its Emmy-nominated Honest Trailers and the weekly video news program The Loop. For more information follow @getfandom or visit: www.fandom.com

Luke Aldridge

Commercial Director, EMEA, Livewire

After working in digital/programmatic teams for several years, Luke co-created DGame, an in-house gaming marketing agency within one of the big six holding groups (Dentsu) – the first of its kind in the UK and globally. During that time he helped many brands including Kellogg’s, Santander and Philips, to reach gaming audiences across content, media, in-game and social. He has a passion for developing authentic campaigns that celebrate gaming culture and heritage, ensuring that brands have a clear purpose within gaming. His personal mission: to make sure that partnerships in gaming drive meaningful brand outcomes and enhance the user experience, instead of interrupting it. His favourite game of all time is Final Fantasy VII and he’s currently getting a shooing on Bloodborne.

Johnny Winn

Head of Advertising,Virgin Media O2

Johnny Winn is a life-long gaming nerd who also happens to be Head of Advertising at Virgin Media O2. Johnny is responsible for consumer-facing activity under the O2, Virgin Mobile, and Virgin Media O2 brands, and also leads on gaming strategy from a brand perspective. In 2021, Johnny spearheaded O2’s partnership with Epic Games, AEG, and Universal Music to create The O2 in Fortnite, a week long activation that marked the brand’s first major foray into the space.

Before joining the dark side, Johnny spent the first half of his career at several big creative agencies including Ogilvy and Saatchi & Saatchi, where he helped grow household British brands as well as global blue chips across the UK and EMEA.

Johnny graduated from the University of Virginia with a degree in History. He is a board member of the University of Virginia Club of London, as well as a member of the Young Advisory board at EARTH University. He was a finalist of the Marketing Society’s “Ones to Watch” programme in 2019, and in 2021 was the first UK brand leader to be featured in Spotify’s “Inside Tracks” series.

In his spare time, Johnny hand-builds gaming PCs, reads too much sci-fi, and attempts to make his twin 3-year-old girls take him seriously.

Kostyantyn Lobov

Partner, Harbottle & Lewis

Kostyantyn is a partner at London-based law firm Harbottle & Lewis. He co-heads the firm’s Interactive Entertainment Group and has worked extensively with clients in the video game and esports sectors.

He advises on all aspects of Intellectual Property, Advertising and Regulatory, as well as Commercial issues. His wider client base includes brand owners, production companies, various members of the creative industries, and tech start-ups. They range in size from SMEs to multinational corporations with large in-house legal teams. He also advises on the practical application of advertising codes, and investigations by regulators such as the ASA, CMA and Trading Standards.

Kostyantyn is a member of the Video Game Bar Association and is ranked in the Legal 500, Chambers and IP Stars

Ben Malka

Director & Head of InterTalent Esports and Gaming, InterTalent Rights Group

Ben joined WPP agency MEC UK (now Wavemaker UK) as an intern and the rest was history. What was supposed to be a 6-month internship turned into a full-time gig in the performance team. After two years he moved to various agencies working across some of the biggest clients such as Lloyds Banking Group and Nintendo.

Ben then joined global peripheral company HyperX as their lead Influencer Manager. He flew across the globe working and managing some of the top gamers, esport teams and celebrities, bringing the likes of Dele Alli, Marco Reus and Rapha Varane into the gaming world through multi-year partnerships.

When not obsessing over his work and family. Ben can be found in the gym or sleeping

Charlie Griffith

Senior Account Director, VCCP

Charlie has been a Senior Account Director at creative agency VCCP for just over 2 years, having built up experience with long stints at FCB Inferno and BBH. He currently leads a number of Mondelez brands including the much loved Cadbury. Within the Cadbury portfolio, Charlie heads up the Easter seasonal business, which is made up of both Creme Egg and the multiple award winning Worldwide Hide campaign, the latter created in partnership with Google. A global roll-out across markets followed major success for the Worldwide Hide in its inaugural 2021 campaign and Charlie continues to be responsible for the world class consumer experiences Cadbury showcase within their advertising.

Anthony Lawson

Head of Sales - EMEA, Activision Blizzard Media

With over 15 years’ experience in media, including over ten years in digital, Anthony is a seasoned and strategic sales leader. In his current role as Head of Sales - EMEA at Activision Blizzard Media, he oversees all advertising revenue across the region, playing a key role in driving growth for the business through its premium mobile gaming offering as well as esports media.

Prior to joining Activision Blizzard Media, Anthony was Agency Director at Oath (Verizon), leading a team across programmatic, premium video, cross platform brand and digital performance, as well as bespoke brand creative projects. He has also held key sales roles at Weve, O2 Media, The Telegraph and Bauer Media.

Gavin Johnson

Media Director, City Football Group

Responsible for developing CFG’s ambitions in the constantly evolving media and entertainment space, focusing on content creation, distribution, and commercial media across the growing family of CFG clubs.

Delivering on the group’s long-term strategy to be present in key football countries, play beautiful football and develop talent. His role focuses on growing the brands and fan base by developing new and creative content.

Previously, Gavin was Managing Director of JOE Media which grew to become Digiday European Publisher of the Year in 2019 with ground-breaking social media content including the award winning ‘House Of Rugby’, ‘Liquid Football’, ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ and ‘TKO’. He also oversaw partnerships with a number of of blue chip clients including Cadbury, Guinness, Gillette, McDonald’s, Adidas, British Airways and many more. Previous to JOE, Gavin was Commercial Director at AOL and part of the commercial teams at both Virgin Media and ITV.

Tarja Porkka-Kontturi

Director of Communications, The Global Game Jam

Working as Director of Communications at Global Game Jam and Business Development Manager at TIGS.ca, Tarja Porkka-Kontturi is a games, toys & tech PR and marketing expert at PR Nordic, and Marketing Lead at EcoManka, a global educational gaming program. She also volunteers as board member at We in Games Finland, and serves as a mentor at IGDA and Women in Games. In game development, Tarja's focus is on the production side of games, consultation, rising others, and teaching children how to make games. She will always speak for diversity, inclusion and accessibility matters.

Jonathan Dodd

Manager, Global Creator Partnerships - Apex Legends, Battlefield, Need for Speed, EA Star Wars, EAO, EA Sports

Elizabeth Lane

Head of Research and Measurement, IAB UK

Elizabeth Lane is the Head of Research and Measurement at IAB UK, where she leads the team delivering world-class insight into the digital advertising industry. She has over ten years’ experience in media research, having worked at Ipsos MORI, the BBC and in government at DCMS, prior to joining IAB UK in 2019.

Tim Repa-Davies

Game Development and Publishing Lawyer, Sheridans

Games and talent lawyer . Tim is a lawyer specializing in advising games companies and games industry talent, from developers and publishers to streamers and other content creators. He's read more publishing agreements than he would care to remember, but loves helping developers and publishers sort out their contracts and grow their business.

Advisor . Tim works as a legal and commercial advisor to some wonderful indie studios and games companies including Brave at Night (Yes, Your Grace), Disobey (influencer marketing agency), Kaizen Game Works (Paradise Killer), Stave Studios (Over the Alps), and Tributary Games (Project TBC).

Mental health advocate . Tim is also a patron with Safe in our World; a mental health charity that is working to raise awareness of mental health issues, and to provide support to the wider games industry.

• Follow him on Twitter @dontfeartherepa
• Connect with him on LinkedIn
• Email him on Tim.RD@Sheridans.co.uk

George Osborn

Head of Communications, UKIE

George Osborn is the Head of Campaigns and Communications for Ukie, the video games industry trade body. He is the co-chair of the video games industry charity GamesAid and represents Ukie on the board of the UK age rating authority the Video Standards Council (VSC). He was named one of Games Industry Biz’s Future 100 talents in 2018, was listed in MCV’s 30 Under 30 in 2019 and has served as a BAFTA games award judge on three occasions.

Patrick Fagan

Behavioural Scientist & Guest Lecturer, UCL

Patrick is an applied behavioural scientist with over a decade’s experience ‘turning minds into money’. That is, he takes psychology academia and practically applies it in the real world. On the academic side, he is a part time lecturer in consumer behaviour at Goldsmiths and UAL, and a guest lecturer at UCL. He has co-authored peer-reviewed papers on topics ranging from Facebook psychology to facial expressions, from implicit bias to suicide prevention. He is the author of the Pearson book Hooked: Why cute sells, and other marketing magic we just can’t resist. On the commercial side, for over a decade Patrick has been running research to help clients understand their customers and improve their products and communications, using a whole range of techniques, such as implicit testing, psychometrics, projective interviews, behavioural experiments, biometrics, and more. Some illustrative clients include eBay, O2 and Sony. Patrick worked for eight months as the Lead Psychologist at Cambridge Analytica (in the commercial team!). Here, he learned the power and methods of data science mixed with behavioural science, to send the right people the right nudge at the right time.

Andy Johnson-Creek

Head of PR, Help for Heroes

Andy leads the PR for Help for Heroes, which encompasses everything that is externally facing for the charity - be it press office, media appearances, public facing campaigning and, ultimately, making as much noise as possible around fundraising and the needs of wounded, injured and sick veterans.

He also leads the charity’s approach to gaming, working closely with the fundraising, brand and marketing teams, as well as directly with gaming publishers and partners.

With a career beyond Help for Heroes encompassing several leading PR agencies, Andy has devised and implemented a range of communications strategies for all sorts of businesses, from small businesses right up to global brands and FTSE 100 companies. Those strategies have included awareness campaigns, product launches, crisis and reputation work, internal change communications, influencer activation as well as government lobbying campaigns.

Jo Jones

Global Head of Communications, DREST

Siem Los

Marketing Manager, Duracell UK

Rob Mackenzie

Senior New Partnerships Specialist – Sector Lead Technology , Cancer Research UK

Edward Peters

Head of Digital Partnerships & Business Development, European Tour Group

Edward leads on all things Digital Partnerships & Business Development for the European Tour group. Day to day responsibilities include building and executing digital activation programmes for a broad portfolio of Partners and Sponsors. As part of his Business Development activities, Edward is responsible for developing and delivering the European Tour group strategy on Gaming. Over the past 2 years, the European Tour Group has partnered with leading online golf game, World Golf Tour by TopGolf, and esports production specialists, Dreamhack Sports Games, to deliver golfs first esports property – the European eTour. Entering its third season, the eTour has seen over a 1 million entries and 37 million holes played across 12 tournaments, with over $200k paid out in prize money. Peters also oversaw the recent partnership with leading mobile gaming Studio, Playdemic, which saw the Ryder Cup integrated into its award-winning game, Golf Clash, during the 2021 match at Whistling Straits.

Dylan Wyn Pugh

Head of Commercial at international energy drinks brand

Peter Jacobs

Commercial Director, Livewire

Peter Jacobs is a Commercial Director for Livewire Group in EMEA. In this role, he helps brands get into or improve their gaming marketing strategies. Prior to Livewire, he co-launched and led DGame, Dentsu’s gaming division.