Brooke Knight Warner has 18 years experience in marketing, media and communications, creating and managing consumer-driven properties and messaging strategies. Her prior positions have included: VP Marketing, Solar Style, Inc., where she launched a national brand on a shoestring budget and PR efforts alone. Managing Director, Hispanic Business, Inc., General Manager, EquiSearch, Primedia, Inc.,Vice President/Co-Founder, Mom.com where she also acted as the company spokesman for all national PR campaigns. Consulting clients include: Red Bull GmbH, Bill Cosby’s Picture Pages, Tribune Publishing and Cricket Technologies. Earlier in her career she was the Director of PR for Ball Advertising and led all PR and communications strategies for Oakworks Therapeutic Equipment.

Sheri Pocilujko is the Corporate Communications Director at High Voltage Software, Inc., in Hoffman Estates, Illinois where she brings her unique background and talents to help on both game development and business operations tasks. An avid gamer herself, she plays all types from board, card, and paper role-playing to PC, massive-multiplayer, and console games. While a volunteer for a collectible card game company Sheri formed Matriarchal Society, a co-ed community whose goals were to help other volunteers increase their female player base and to help those females who were already players. An outspoken member of the industry she has presented at many conferences, universities, and industry events on various aspects of game development as well as being featured on G4 and industry-related websites.

Sheri's thirst for knowledge has also led her to become an active IGDA member participating in the Women in Game Development, Human Resources, Production, Online Games, Casual Games, and Writer's SIGs, Quality of Life Committee, the leadership council for the Sexuality in Games SIG, and co-founder and current chair of the Quality Assurance SIG. She currently sits on the executive board of the IGDA Chicago chapter, several program committees for various industry conferences, and continues to work on creating more resources for the development community.

Jolene Spry is currently the president and executive producer of a next-generation development studio, Angry Robot Games, as well as a casual games studio, Atomic Wedgie Games. She is also a freelance writer for a number of top media outlets covering the video game and tech industries, including a weekly segment on Playboy Radio on Sirius and continues to speak at video game, entertainment and convergence-related events. She is also a regular writer for various online news publications. Jolene is the Public Relations Chair for Women in Games International and serves on several other video game and entertainment advisory boards and committees.

Throughout her career, Spry has managed several companies and developed corporate strategies and-high profile public relations and marketing campaigns for Fortune 500 corporations including Starbucks, McDonald's, Diageo-Guinness USA, Starwood, Ritz-Carlton and Microsoft. Her event planning experience includes an international animation festival, as well as national and regional on-premise promotions. She began her career in advertising and has created numerous multi-channel broadcast, interactive and print campaigns.

Kimberley Stowe brings more than 14 years of diversified public relations and marketing communications experience to the gaming space. With an emphasis on multimedia, graphics and portable hardware technologies, Kim has served as an independent PR representative and communications project manager for many entrepreneurial startups in the Silicon Valley.

Ms. Stowe's enthusiasm and marketing instincts have enabled her to build an extensive network of analysts, media, agencies and independent talent. In the process, she has earned a strong reputation based on results. Ms. Stowe has been at the forefront of launching "first" technologies, including the 3D graphics card (NVIDIA/Diamond Multimedia), the fully programmable graphics chip (3Dlabs), the Personal Media Player: Photo Edition (PortalPlayer) and the hardware physics processor (AGEIA Technologies).

Kim has a BA degree in Journalism & Mass Communications from San Jose State University. She is a Certified Business Communicator (CBC) through the Business Marketing Association and enjoys handling pro-bono PR for non-profit organizations.

Ernest Adams is a freelance game designer, writer, and teacher, working with the International Hobo Design Group. He has worked in the game industry since 1989, and has long been interested in issues related to women and gaming. Ernest was most recently employed as a lead designer at Bullfrog Productions on the Dungeon Keeper series, and for several years before that was the audio/video producer on the Madden NFL Football line for Electronic Arts. Ernest is also the founder and first chairman of the IGDA, and established as one of its major tasks the goal attracting more women to the industry. His website is at www.designersnotebook.com.

Ellen Guon Beeman has fifteen years of experience in designing, writing, and producing games. She began her games career as a project manager at Sierra, then joined Origin to write and direct games in the Wing Commander series. She has also held salaried positions at Electronics Arts and Monolith Productions. As a freelancer, she worked for Disney, Sega, Leapfrog, Mary-Margaret.com, and other companies. Prior to her games career, Ellen was a children's television writer, and has published four novels and several short stories. Ellen has been a speaker at the Game Developer Conference, SXSW Interactive, and other game industry events.

Lucy Bradshaw tells her kids that when she was young, she had to walk an 8 mile paper route through the harsh winter conditions of her home town of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Even at the young age of 10, she proved herself to have enough strength, focus, and creativity to get a difficult job done. These same qualities have helped her achieve success in her present position at Maxis.

As executive producer of The Sims 2, the fastest selling PC game of all time, Lucy oversaw the overall game design and played a major role in its unprecedented success. She encourages people to express creativity and enables ownership to the teams. Her experience at Activision, Lucas Arts, and Electronic Arts served as a launching pad when Lucy decided to join Maxis after it was acquired by EA in 1997.

Prior to working in the gaming industry, Lucy received a BA in psychology from the University of Michigan. She originally began working on SimCity 3000 and then worked on The Sims, SimCity 4, and The Sims 2. She is currently working hand in hand with Will Wright on Spore, which recently took home the 2006 Electronic Entertainment Expo awards of; Most Creative Game, Best PC Game and Best Simulation.

Jason is the executive director of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), a professional society committed to advancing the careers and enhancing the lives of game developers. Jason and the IGDA focus on connecting developers with their peers, promoting professional development, and advocating on issues that affect the developer community -- such as quality of life, creative freedoms, workforce diversity and credit standards.

As the spokesperson for the IGDA, Jason has appeared in countless news outlets (e.g., Wired, Nightline, LA Times, NPR, Wall Street Journal, G4, etc) and has spoken at conferences around the world (e.g., GDC, E3, TGS, SIGGRAPH, ChinaJoy, DiGRA, etc). Jason has been a member of the game development community for over a decade, and has spent time at Matrox Graphics, Quazal and Silicon Graphics.

Graeme Devine is an industry veteran who's worked on seminal titles like Pole Position and Double Dragon for platforms as diverse as the Commodore 64, Tandy 1000, Collecovision, and Nintendo Game Boy. As a designer and project manager at id Software, he oversaw the day to day development of Quake III: Arena. Before joining id Software, Devine founded Trilobyte, producing classic PC titles such as The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour. He has also spent time at gaming giants Atari, Activision, and Virgin Games.

As executive producer for Microsoft Game Studios (MGS), Laura Fryer works to make Microsoft game titles the most sought after offerings on the market. Named one of The Hollywood Reporter's “Top 12 Most Influential Women in Gaming in 2004,” Fryer is recognized as one of the most promising young leaders in the entertainment industry. In 1995, Fryer became one of the first members of MGS. During her tenure, she shipped six games including the classic "Crimson Skies." As one of the founders of MSN's Zone.com, she conceived and produced the first Microsoft release of Zone.com, and produced "Fighter Ace 1.0," Microsoft's first massively multiplayer game. Fryer left MGS to become a founding member of the Xbox project in May 2000 as the Director of the Xbox Advanced Technology Group responsible for making Xbox the ultimate platform for game developers. During her four years with Xbox, she cultivated worldwide Xbox Developer Support, created the Xbox Advisory Board, and ran Xbox game developer events (a.k.a. Xfests) around the globe.

Laura Fryer is dedicated to fostering the role of women in the video games industry. In 2000 she was one of the founders of the annual "Women in Gaming" sessions at the Game Developers Conference (GDC). Recently honored for her role as a leading voice in the industry, Fryer was named to the GDC Advisory Board, adding to the already impressive list of industry insiders who work to define market innovations and future vision for the gaming space.

Over the past 15 years, Gano has designed and produced many best-selling entertainment software titles for Sierra On-Line, Electronic Arts, and Stunt Puppy Entertainment. As the President and Founding Partner at Stunt Puppy Entertainment, she created high-quality interactive entertainment titles that sold over two million units for clients such as Mattel Media, Atari, and Buena Vista Games. At AT&T's ImagiNation Network and HearMe/Mpath, Gano led the design of innovative consumer online entertainment experiences. Gano has a B.A. from Duke University with Phi Beta Kappa honors, an M.A. in Theatre and Drama from University of Wisconsin at Madison, and did doctoral work in Performance Studies at Northwestern University's School of Speech.

Perrin Kaplan oversees public relations, government affairs, investor relations and internal communications for the Western Hemisphere and plays a key role in global coordination. She is a leader in the company’s top marketing team.

Kaplan joined Nintendo as corporate communications manager in 1992. In 1996, she became director of corporate affairs, expanded her responsibilities and built the department that represents the company today.

Before joining Nintendo, Kaplan was vice president for The Rockey Company, a Seattle-based public relations and public affairs firm. Prior to that, she worked as a member of the Washington State Department of Ecology’s public affairs team.

Kaplan also worked on the Washington State Senate communications staff and was a reporter/editor for KING Broadcasting, Seattle’s NBC affiliate. A Seattle native, Kaplan holds a bachelor of arts degree in communications and political science from the University of Washington.

Jen’s responsibilities as General Manager, Games at Comcast include management of all games products, strategy, and business development for the United States' largest cable company.

Jen has had a long and varied career in online content. After beginning her career at Microprose Software in 1992, she joined AOL in 1996; during her tenure at AOL, she held numerous positions in the AOL brand programming division, including Programming Director for the Games Channel.

Jen is a frequent speaker at interactive entertainment industry events, and has earned a BA in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins University and an MBA with a concentration in International Business from the Columbia Business School. Jen was named one of the “Game Industry’s 100 Most Influential Women” by Next Generation.

Monika Madrid is director of strategic sales and partnerships at Ubisoft. Monika joined Ubisoft in 2001 and launched the company’s licensing program for the North American territories. Today Monika manages the team responsible for all of North American non-retail business and key worldwide accounts. She is responsible for Ubisoft’s partnerships for in-game branding and product integration, product and technology bundles, outbound licensing, strategy guides, loyalty programs and Macintosh ports. Monika’s team has grown revenue to $3.5 million and has established partnerships with high-profile companies including Yahoo, Bell Canada, AMD and nVIDIA.

Prior to Ubisoft, Monika was business development manager at Snowball.com, the parent company of several videogame and teen-focused lifestyle Web sites. At Snowball.com, Monika developed and maintained strategic partnerships with annual revenues of more than $1 million each. Monika was also responsible for overseeing execution of partnerships in coordination with product management, client services, advertising, operations, engineering, affiliate services and finance.

Prior to Snowball.com, Monika was an account supervisor at Access Communications, a public relations and marketing agency. At Access, Monika developed national public relations and marketing campaigns for Internet, videogame, technology and blue-chip companies.

Monika earned a bachelor’s degree in English Literature from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. She lives in San Francisco.

Kathy Schoback has nearly 15 years experience in the gaming industry, serving the majority of her career at Sega of America. She currently serves on the board of the International Game Developers Association, and is a member of the GDC advisory board. Her many speaking engagements include the Game Developers Conference, the Austin Game Conference, and Fall Focus.

In her 9 years at Sega, Kathy occupied a variety of relationship management and business development positions, in which she routinely exceeded sales and revenue targets. Her impressive series of accomplishments led to her appointment in 2001 as Director of External Development and Publishing. She identified top independent developers in North America and Europe for potential acquisition, then initiated negotiations with the leading candidate.

As Director of Product Operations at Eidos in San Francisco, Kathy created and managed processes for game release scheduling and platform-holder certification. Responsible for inbound/outbound licensing for title acquisitions, wireless, digital distribution, in-game product placement, and emerging platforms, her leadership resulted in $2.8 million in topline revenue.

Kathy is a summa cum laude graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and has a certificate in Human Resource Development at the University of California, Berkeley Extension.

Alice Taylor has a decade of experience working in new media, from early days developing the first Channel4.com in 1996 to recent projects at the BBC in digital media Strategy & Innovation. Alice specialises in sociable software and videogaming crossovers with television and radio.

Alice speaks publicly on games and sociable media, and was recently a judge for the 2005 Mackies, the annual Machinima awards, and the 2007 Independent Games Festival. She also contributes to conferences and events, most recently the 2005 and 2006 Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festivals (eief.co.uk), and the 2006 AULA in Helsinki.

Alice writes at the gamecentric blog Wonderland (www.wonderlandblog.com) and has written about gaming for sites and magazines, including BBC News, Kotaku.com, the Guardian, the New Statesman and Paste. She used to play semi-professional Quake in her spare time, and was on the first UK team playing international matches.

Alice is currently living and working in Los Angeles, where she is also a fellow at USC. You will also often find her in World of Warcraft (Magtheridon US and Runetotem UK, both Crystaltips) or Second Life (Crystaltips Pavlova).

As CEO, Mary Margaret leads the recruitment strategies and new business endeavors for Mary-Margaret.com. She brings to the role 14 years of experience in recruiting and 6 years of experience in video game development. Prior to moving to recruiting in 1996, Mary Margaret was Manager of Studio Services for The 3DO Company managing the milestones and development process of all projects in production and the hiring of over 200 employees. Previously, she was at Origin Systems where she created the company’s Human Resources department and contributed to titles in development as a Design Manager.

Mary Margaret is a regular speaker at international trade shows and has authored numerous articles. She was a contributing author to Ernest Adams' popular book, Break Into The Game Industry: How to Get a Job Making Video Games. A founding member of the IGDA, Mary Margaret holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Texas Christian University and an M.B.A. from Sacred Heart University.