In this new segment of Rise and Play, I sit down with my business partner Miska Katkoff, CEO at Savage Games, and the founder of Deconstructor of Fun In those episodes, we will share with Miska our reflection thoughts on our leadership work at Savage Games. What can you gain from being more Stoic as a leader? As leaders, we tend to believe that we are responsible for everything that happens around us: company outcomes, actions, and behavior of others. The reality is that we have very little control over what’s going on around us. It takes wisdom to know the difference between precisely what we ..read more

Carol Miu is the CEO of PeopleFun known for the casual hit game Wordscapes. The company has seen tremendous growth from $100MM in annual revenue in 2018 to over $300MM currently. Carol shares her whole journey from joining the company in 2018 as the product leader on Wordscapes to becoming the CEO. Learn how Carol approached scaling an organization of 17 people to a mature organization of 100+ employees, and how to grow the team leaders in a sustainable way. After all, the leaders of an organization are the most influential people to steer the culture and company results. How do you give the b ..read more

For the occasion of International Women's Day, I want to celebrate with you all the virtue of Courage. The courage to be ourselves, the courage to change our lives when something is not right, the courage to listen to ourselves and to respect our needs, first.  A month ago, I did something I was really afraid to do: tell a personal story on stage.  The story you are about to hear is a performance I gave on stage at The Bear, a Berlin storytelling event with up to 100 people in the audience. You get up onstage, no notes, and tell a story that is related to a theme (on this evening, it ..read more

A proven way to build a strong company culture starts from the top, with the leadership. Is this the only way?  Today, we discuss with Jussi Tähtinen, CEO and co-founder of Nitro Games, a Finnish mobile mid-core games studio, on how to build a culture bottom-up. How do you start the process when you want to involve your people in reevaluating your culture? How do you define company values bottom-up, and at which stage of the company should you do it? How often should you update you values and culture? Values are not just pretty words on the wall, so how do you turn them into everyday habi ..read more

What is managing up? While there are plenty of books about how to be a good Leader, there are few to none about how to be a good follower. Why is that? Wherever you are in this world, you will always report to someone, your boss, a stakeholder, or an investor. Making those relationships work is as important as the relationships you build in your team. How can you apply your empathetic superpowers to your manager? Managing up is good for you, good for your boss, and good for the organization as a whole. In this episode, we cover how to "Manage Up" with Michail Katkoff (Managing Director at Sava ..read more

In this episode, we cover the journey of Celine Pasula, Managing Director at Ubisoft RedLynx, on the evolution of the studio after the acquisition from Ubisoft. Being a game studio acquired by a big company is no longer a single story these days. So how do you manage this transition to preserve the DNA of your studio, people, and culture? Is this a realistic outcome to expect? We will cover in the discussion how to tackle strategic communication when you are onboarded as the new General Manager/Managing Director/COO/CEO, post-acquisition. It might be tempting to execute core changes fast, but ..read more

According to studies in the US and Europe in 2021, 1 out of 5 of your employees are experiencing a diagnosable mental illness, 53% are saying that their work or work environment negatively impacts their mental health. While it is an uncomfortable topic for company leaders, we cannot ignore the fact that it is happening on a global scale. What can we do about it and where is the line to draw between an employer and employees?  In this episode, we tackle with Songya Why mental health issues happen and creep into the workplace. Impactful and durable changes happen from the top, so we will pr ..read more

Netflix has been in the spotlight since it announced its game platform. How do you approach building a portfolio of games for an entertainment platform? What are the skills required as a Publisher vs a Developer? How do you select the game developers who will be the best partners from the point of view of a publisher? Leanne Loombe has extensive career developing and publishing games over the past 18 years, working on iconic franchises such as Magic the Gathering, Need for Speed, and League of Legends. She is currently heading up External Games at Netflix and helping to change how we play game ..read more

DEI has been a buzzword over the past few years. It has been overused as an employer branding strategy or an attempt to correct inequality in the workplace. But implementing a DEI department, DEI initiatives or training won't resolve the root of the inequality gap. Durable changes start at the company's core (and top): Why do you exist? What is your mission and why caring about DEI will support your mission and values? Only then, you can identify where DEI must be implemented as part of your processes, to reflect the culture and mission you support.  We will cover in this episode with Lau ..read more

We meet again in this episode with Joakim Achrén, founder of Elite Game Developers, to break the myth of the stressful busy entrepreneur, and that it is actually not good for you. Why is this so hard to talk openly about mental burnout among entrepreneurs and leaders? Why are we holding on that image of control? What's happening under the surface, and what are the long-term consequences in the long run of suppressing negative emotions?   We'll address in this episode: - The definition of burnout. What are the signs? Joakim and I will share our personal experiences. - What can you do once ..read more