Elaine Dowman, Head of Games & Creative Industries from Barclays joins impressive line-up on Northern Lights panel which is being hosted by Game Republic at Develop Brighton in July.
Elaine Dowman heads up a dedicated games and creative industries team at Barclays, leading the banks strategy and implementation for these industries both in the UK and globally. Previously Elaine’s career had been focused on advertising and brand strategy, spanning across the entertainment, sports and finance and industries. Her focus now is on identifying opportunities where Barclays can better support the industries to help it grow, from banking and beyond. Elaine champions and leads a number of initiatives and events that support the growth of the games industry, such as Demo Days, accelerator programmes and awards. Elaine is an active fundraiser for SpecialEffect and a non-exec board member for W.R.K.S Games
Game Republic will be hosting the panel at the major UK game developer conference Develop: Brighton, 11th-13th July, and in addition to Elaine, Bobby Thandi (XR Games), Simon Iwanisak (Red Kite Games) will be fellow panelists with more speakers to be announced shortly.
Northern Lights will celebrate Game Republic’s 20th anniversary this year and will be looking at the factors that drive success for games companies in Yorkshire and The North and the incredible history of games making in the region. Looking to the future, Jamie will be asking panelists to share their insights and what they will be doing to support sector success going forward. Game Republic members will get a 10% discount on Early Bird tickets if they book before 6th April 2023 using the code KMDHCK. The 20th Anniversary celebrations of Game Republic is being supported by Official Partners Escape Technology, Barclays and Red Kite Games. See interview here about the occasion done by Barclays last month.
“As a region, we have great successes to share and examples of how companies can collaborate with each other” says Sefton. “Our partnership and this panel with Develop: Brighton will be another great way for us to mark our 20-year anniversary.”
Simon Iwaniszak has over 17 years of industry experience, the last 11 spent running the multi-award-winning development studio, Red Kite Games. Founded by Simon in 2012, Red Kite is now part of the Sumo Digital family of studios. Having built a reputation for delivering a high-quality service creating AAA PC/console games across varying genres, Red Kite supports multiple world-class publishing partners. Before Red Kite, Simon started his career at Rockstar working on incredible franchises such as Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption. Simon is a proud Ambassador of the games charity SpecialEffect – which Game Republic is supporting all year – and provides consultation for several Yorkshire-based universities.
Bobby Thandi is the Founder and CEO of XR Games – an award-winning VR game development studio. Bobby secures contracts from key clients such as Sony Pictures and develops key relationships with global partners such as Meta, Microsoft, Valve, and others. Bobby is responsible for attracting top tier talent as XR Games rapidly scales off the back of the hit VR game ‘Zombieland: Headshot Fever’. Bobby has won an array of awards including ‘Creative Entrepreneur of the Year’ at the 2022 Great British Entrepreneur Awards and ‘Leeds City Region Leader’ at the 2021 Northern Leadership Awards. Bobby was also a 2022 ‘EY Entrepreneur of the Year’ finalist.
Link to the business panels at Develop: Brighton here
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