2012 Speakers:
Kyoko Matsushita, European Business Development and Developer Relations Lead, GREE: Kyoko Matsushita leads the European Business Development and Developer Relations teams at GREE’s UK office. GREE is a leading mobile social gaming company that reaches over 150 million players worldwide and offers over 7,500 games. Kyoko is a 10 year gaming and technology veteran. Prior to joining GREE, Kyoko worked at Electronic Arts as an International Product and Marketing lead at EA Maxis, EARS, EALA, and EA Montreal. She worked on many different game genres, RPG to Casual, and titles, including SPORE, Dead Space, Simpsons, and SKATE. Kyoko holds a master’s degree in management/social science from London School of Economics and Political Science.
Richard Firminger, Managing Director Europe, Flurry: As Managing Director of Europe, Richard leads the company’s UK office as well as advertiser sales and publisher relationships across Europe. Prior to Flurry, Richard led the digital media sales team for Amazon in Europe. Prior to Amazon, Richard was Commercial Director for Northern Europe for Yahoo!, UK MD for Enpocket (sold to Nokia to become Nokia Media Business in 2006), UK Deputy MD & BD Director for AdLink (a direct response media sales organization, sold to HiMedia in 2009) and the first UK Commercial Director for DoubleClick, subsequently sold to AdLink in 2001. Prior to DoubleClick Richard spent nearly 10 years in B2B publishing in tech press on titles such as Computing and Personal Computer World and during this time he launched Information Week and Computer Reseller News in the UK for CMP Media.
Christian Petersen: VP Community, CloudMade: Christian has over 20 years of experience within online and mobile app industry. He has worked internationally as an expert on mobile applications and advergaming for companies such as Macromedia, Microsoft, Symbian, Kellogg’s, LEGO, Mars, and Nestle. Christian’s current role – VP Community at CloudMade – involves regular communication with top game developers and publishers and provides a clear understanding of the main trends and challenges of the gaming market. Christian is a frequent speaker at mobile and developer conferences, among the most recent ones – Mobile 2.0, Where 2.0, Casual Connect Europe.
Paul Bowen, Managing Director, Tapjoy: With 9 years of experience working in digital media start-up companies and monetizing online content, Paul Bowen is one of the leading advocates of virtual currency in the UK. Formerly at the UK office of Adknowledge (owner of Super Rewards), he is now Vice President of Europe for Tapjoy, Inc. Tapjoy is the leader in discovery, engagement and monetization services for mobile applications. The company’s turnkey in-app advertising platform helps developers acquire cost-effective, high-value new users, drive engagement within their applications, and create incremental income by providing an ad-funded virtual currency based payment method.
Brian Wong, Founder, Kiip: Brian Wong is the founder of kiip (pronounced “keep”), a mobile rewards network, backed by True Ventures. Kiip has raised over $4.4 million in funding to date and is redefining the advertising industry through a “moments”-based model, versus the traditional attention-based screen estate model. Very recently, Kiip was listed by Forbes as one of the “4 Hot Online Ad Companies to Put on Your Watch List”, and was also named to the Dow Jones’ FasTech50 List.
Techcrunch and the Wall Street Journal called Brian the “youngest person to ever receive funding by a venture capital firm”. He was an early Bachelors of Commerce graduate from the University of British Columbia, graduating at the age of 18, after skipping four grades in elementary and high school. He was recently honored in the prestigious Forbes 30 Under 30, and was also lauded in Mashable as one of “The Top 5 Young Entrepreneurs to Watch”, and the Vancouver Sun called him “a budding internet visionary”. He was also recently a recipient of the Top 20 Under 20 awards in all of Canada. Brian was also recently listed to AdAge’s Creativity Top 50, and Business Insider’s Top 25 Under 25 in Silicon Valley list.
Stephane Bura, Lead Designer, Namaste Entertainment: A role-playing game writer of 25 years, Stéphane Bura has advanced degrees in artificial intelligence specializing in the study of emerging properties in complex worlds. Before joining Namaste Entertainment as their lead designer on the StoryBricks project, he worked with Kalisto Entertainment, has been the creative director of 10Tacle Belgium, and worked as an independent game design consultant. www.storybricks.com
Jessica Butcher, CMO & Co Founder, Blippar: Jess cut her entrepreneurial teeth as the first hire at fast growth travel start-up isango.com where she was Head of Partnerships prior to moving on to manage business development and supplier marketing in EMEA for Alibaba.com, the Chinese e-commerce site, on its launch into the region. In 2010 she set up Integritour, the first responsible tourism company in Western Kenya. She has an MA in Ancient & Modern History from the University of Oxford.
Caspar Thykier, Founder & Managing Director, Zappar: Caspar spent the last 15 years across differentareas of marketingstarting in advertising where he became the youngest Board Director and New Business Director at AMV BBDO before becoming a founding partner of Campbell Doyle Dye Ltd (“CDD”) and Managing Director at the age of 27. After 8 years at CDD Caspar became the Chief Operating Officer at the top UK PR firm Freud Communications before moving into the world of digital where he is the founder and director of two pioneering companies – VEEMEE and Zappar. VEEMEE specializes in branded content and original IP on games platforms and handheld devices; whilst Zappar is a world leader in mobile image recognition specialising in AR-enabled products and branded entertainment experiences.
