About devcom

Rebecka Coutaz

Studio Director Ubisoft Annecy

Born in Sweden, Rebecka has been working in the video game industry since 1998, after a degree in business school. In 2011, she decided to take a new challenge at Ubisoft, becoming the Ubisoft Annecy's Studio Manager. She worked on developing the studio to create a team of 230+ talented people who collaborate on AAA video game brands such as 'Tom Clancy's The Division', 'Assassin's Creed', 'Splinter Cell' and 'Driver'. In 2016, the studio released its first own game: 'STEEP'. For Rebecka, 'STEEP' is the Holy Grail that was missing in Ubisoft Annecy, combining its two passions: skiing and video games. Made a mountain passionate team, the studio worked in partnership with the International Olympic Committee on the extension 'Road to the Olympics', released in December 2017 and with XGAMES organization for the latest expansion released in October 2018. 2019 will be big for the studio with the release of 'Tom Clancy's The Division 2', developed in collaboration with Massive Entertainment studio.

Katya Dolgova

COO Redhill Games

Ekaterina (Katya) Dolgova is a Human Resources professional, facilitator and trainer with 20+ years of experience in Financial, Consulting, IT and Gaming industries.

A lawyer and Chartered FCIPD by background, Katya has been working in the HR field since 1995. During her career.
Katya successfully completed over 15 acquisition deals across EMEA; opened 11 new locations in Russia, CIS, Eastern and Central Europe, Africa and China; facilitated employees’ representatives, Works Councils and Trade Union negotiations across Europe; hired more than 300 professionals and over 70 executives; developed and run employee engagement programs, assessment and development centers; leadership and culture transformation campaigns.

Now in January 2019 Katya works at Redhill Games as a COO and in her free time runs a Management Consultancy “It Starts With You, Ltd”. Previous experience includes Wargaming, Cisco Systems, First Data Corporation, Western Union, KPMG and JSCB “Contact”. She has been working with employees, leaders and local authorities in 177 countries.

Katya’s educational credentials include:
MS in Linguistics from the Moscow State Pedagogical University in Moscow, Russia
MS in Law from the Moscow Open Social University in Moscow, Russia
FCIPD from Manchester College of Arts and Technologies in Manchester, UK
LCOR certificate from Stanford in Stanford, CA, USA

Katya lives in Nicosia, Cyprus.

Benedikt Grindel

Studio Manager Ubisoft Blue Byte

After acquiring a master’s degree in Mathematics with a minor in business and a short adventure in the carpet manufacturing industry, Benedikt Grindel joined Ubisoft’s German subsidiary in 1998. With positions in Marketing, Business Development, Production and Operations, he has been involved in many different aspects of the industry. Among the games he worked on, The Settlers series holds a special place: Benedikt was producer of this classic PC strategy game brand for more than nine years. Since 2014, he is responsible for Ubisoft Blue Byte. As the Managing Director, Benedikt oversees 425+ employees in three studios in Düsseldorf, Mainz and Berlin, working on brands like 'Anno', 'The Settlers', 'Rainbow Six: Siege', 'Beyond Good and Evil 2', 'Far Cry', and many more.

Lars Janssen

CEO Travian Games

Lars is currently leading the Munich-based games developer & publisher Travian Games as CEO. With his business background, he joined the company as Product Manager in 2010 after gaining experience on other projects in the games industry for a few years. Since then, he's worked his way up and – being one of their own – earned the respect and trust from his peers along the way. Since January 2018, Lars also serves as Member of the Board at game, the German games industry association. Lars believes passion is contagious and focuses strongly on building and coaching enthusiastic teams with talented, diverse, inspirational, and all-around awesome people. He enjoys thinking outside the box and is rarely fond of the status quo. When Lars is not busy with the games industry, he enjoys spending time with his three-year old daughter practicing persuasion techniques. As he considers himself an honorary Texan, y'all might well run into him wherever there's good barbecue in his second home, the Austin-area.

Deborah Mensah-Bonsu

Content Lead Space Ape Games

Deborah is a media professional with a decade of experience, first as a print and tv journalist and then as a producer and content guru in games. She leads on Space Ape’s content and community engagement - regularly shaping and safeguarding the voice, brand and culture of the studio. Before joining Space Ape she was part of the editorial team at Xbox Upload. She’s an advocate for women in games and is passionate about the cross-section between games and education. She spearheads the company's student mentoring program, Space Ape Varsity, and is committed to developing future talent both at work and through various not-for-profits. She loves this industry, good film, bad tv, and sparkling juice drinks.

Audrey Leprince

President & Co-Founder The game Bakers
President Women in Games France

Co-founder of The Game Bakers, a French indie studio striving to make games that players will remember, like Furi and Squids. She is in charge of executive production, some narrative, business and studio management. She started as a game designer for Quantic Dream then producer for Ubisoft, 6 years in China. She now lives in Sweden. She created Women in Games France in 2017.

The Game Bakers presentation: We are an independent game studio founded by Emeric Thoa and Audrey Leprince, former AAA developers. To sum it up we say we make games like we cook food: with a lot of love. We want to create that experience that you remember, that you have fantasies about long after the game is finished, that makes you feel alive and energized. Our studio is "a studio in the clouds" as we work with a team of great collaborators around the world. Our portfolio includes our adrenaline-fuelled boss-fight only game Furi for PlayStation4, Switch, PC and Xbox One, our underwater tactical RPG Squids Odyssey on Switch, mobile and PC, and Combo Crew our modern take on old-school brawlers on mobile.

Pawel Rohleder

Chief Technology Officer Techland

Pawel is a highly experienced developer, leader and video games enthusiast who is keen on new technologies. Right now he’s working on shared technology for two amazing AAA titles @ Techland (Dying Light 2 and another big unannounced AAA project). He has over 15 years in the game development industry, of which the last 12 years are with Techland (known from Dying Light, Dead Island, Call of Juarez) he participated in both original DLs, both DIs and all four CoJ games from start to finish. Thanks to that, he has experienced almost every part of game development, from concept creation to QA.

Pawel is a regularly invited and highly experienced speaker at 60+ gaming and technology conferences. Currently he manages a team of 50+ technology professionals developing cutting-edge technology and systems for games across multiple platforms. He‘s crazy about synergy between technology, science, business and art, and he even did a PhD to prove such synergy exists.

He loves new challenges and taking on “the impossible”.

Philipp Schellbach

Co-Founder & Director of Development YAGER

Philipp Schellbach is a co-founder and the Director of Development at YAGER, a game development studio based in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1999, YAGER is best known for the critically acclaimed 'SpecOps: The Line', 'Dreadnought' and their upcoming game 'The Cycle'.

In the late 1980’s Philipp discovered his passion for games and technology when he got his hands on his first computer, a C64. After going on to complete a degree in computer engineering in 1998, Philipp started as an engine programmer at YAGER and later became the Technical Director of the studio. However, as the company has grown over the years his responsibilities have shifted, and his primary focus is now on the internal organization of the studio’s projects and resources.