Advisory Board
These seasoned industry professionals volunteer their time to help develop the numerous sessions at GDC Canada. They work to ensure that the quality of the content provided to attendees is high-level, relevant, and timely. Their dedication is critical to the success of the conference.
| Brenda Bailey Deep Fried Entertainment |
Steve Bocska Pug Pharm |
| Howard Donaldson Disney Interactive Studios |
Dave Elton EA (Blackbox) |
| Tabitha Hayes EA |
Dan Irish Threewave |
| Jerome Kashetsky National Research Council of Canada |
Colin Macrae Electronic Arts |
| Gerri Sinclair Great Northern Way Campus |
Kerry Whalen Ubisoft |
| Tarrnie Williams EA SPORTS |
Kelly Zmak Independent |
GDC Canada 2010 Advisory Board Biographies
Brenda Bailey
Deep Fried Entertainment
Brenda is the managing partner of Deep Fried Entertainment, a boutique Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS, Sony PSP developer in Vancouver, Canada. Brenda brought her 15 years of management experience running the leading organizations in the social profit sector to her role of building a start-up gaming company. Deep Fried Entertainment began in June of 2005 and has worked developing pick up and play games for Sega and Take Two Interactive. Brenda has been an avid gamer since her pre-teen Galaga domination and is currently a DS and Wii junkie.
Steve Bocska
Pug Pharm
Steve Bocska is currently the founding President of Pug Pharm Productions Inc., a startup in Vancouver focusing purely on social networking online games. He has over 9 years’ of direct experience in the video game industry, having worked for Disney Interactive, Black Box (E.A.), and Radical Entertainment in roles as lead designer, producer, and executive producer. In 2006, he became the founding President and CEO of Hothead Games, winner of the Canadian New Media Association’s award for “Most Promising New Company of 2007.”
Steve also possesses extensive business planning and award-winning strategic planning skills, and is skilled at anticipating trends and patterns within the video game industry. He has advised and consulted for more than 100 business startups, organizations, partnerships, and sole proprietorships in the roles of business planner, strategic planner, market analyst, and operations consultant. He has led projects for Hewlett-Packard, Royal Roads University, Industry Canada, Sheridan Visualization Design Institute, and several other companies and agencies.
Steve has 10 years of post-secondary education, including a B.A. (Honours), M.A. (Planning), and an M.B.A. (Entrepreneurship). He has spoken at a variety of video game industry events, including Game Developer’s Conference (San Jose, California), South by Southwest (Austin, Texas), Vancouver International Game Summit (Vancouver, BC), VIDFEST (Vancouver, BC), Banff New Media Festival (Banff, Alberta), GameON Finance (Toronto, Ontario) and several others.
Howard Donaldson
Disney Interactive Studios
Howard Donaldson is currently Vice President, Studio Operations for Disney Interactive Studios of The Walt Disney Company. Prior to this Donaldson co-founded Propaganda Games in Vancouver, BC. Propaganda Games is one of the internal studios for Disney Interactive Studios. Donaldson also served as the Chief Financial Officer for EA Canada. As a key member of the executive team, he was responsible for managing the company’s financial performance and directing long-term business planning that led to EA Canada’s double-digit annual growth. Before joining EA Canada, Donaldson was the Vice President of Finance and Administration for Disney Interactive in Glendale, CA. He previously served in several financial and operational executive positions at McGraw-Hill, Unysis and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Donaldson has over 10 years experience in the video game industry and over 20 years of corporate leadership experience. Donaldson also serves as a Director for New Media BC and prior as Advisory Chair for Vancouver International Games Summit. Donaldson holds an MBA and CPA.
Dave Elton
EA (Blackbox)
David is a 14 year veteran of the video games industry. His career has spanned 4 generations of console development as well as a PC market that has changed radically since the days of the 386. David has spent the majority of his career with Electronic Arts, where he has worked on the Need For Speed franchise, the SSX franchise and numerous other titles. He has also worked with ReadySoft Inc. on the home versions of Dragon's Lair and Space Ace, with Acclaim Entertainment when they were one of the giants of the industry, and with Microsoft Game Studios as a Business Development Manager, finding the next big hits for Xbox 360 and the PC.
David has experience in a number of capacities including Project Manager, Development Director, Business Development Manager, Producer, and, currently, as the Senior Designer for the Need For Speed franchise.
Tabitha Hayes
EA
Tabitha is the Director of Marketing on the Need for Speed business at Electronic Arts. Prior to joining Electronic Arts, Ms. Hayes spent more than five years at Activision managing the Call of Duty business and the id Software business prior to that. Ms. Hayes and her team are responsible for global leadership across the Need for Speed portfolio including all marketing and promotions campaigns. Ms. Hayes is an MBA alumna of the University of Oregon.
Dan Irish
Threewave
While most kids at age 13 play video games after school, Dan was busy taking night course at college, being the nerd that he is. But, he armed himself with skills to make games during that time. From a young age, Dan has been passionately involved in the video game industry. He’s held various positions with leading edge software publishers and developers such as Spectrum HoloByte, Rocket Science Games, SegaSoft, Mattel Interactive, The Learning Company, UbiSoft Entertainment, and the award-winning Relic Entertainment.
As a successful consultant, he has worked with clients in the entertainment software industry such as Dreamworks Interactive, Evans & Sutherland, and Auran Pty Games Ltd. An accomplished writer, he has authored several game industry books with publishers Sybex, Inc., and Prima Games, a division of Random House. His most recent book is the Game Producer’s Handbook published by Thomson Course Technology, which was rated “5 out of 5 stars”. Gamasutra.com confirmed in their review: “If there were a Hitchhiker's Guide to game production, this would be it!”
Under his leadership as Executive Producer of Relic Entertainment, he was responsible for the highly successful Homeworld2, which was nominated for several industry awards including Best RTS Game at E3 2003 and the AIAS award for PC Strategy Game of the Year. Prior to that, Dan directed the Myst/Riven franchise. This included Myst III: Exile, realMyst, and Myst Masterpiece. Myst III: Exile was nominated for several AIAS (Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences) awards including Best Original Story, Best Original Music Score and Best Adventure Game.
Dan is committed to making Threewave the best multiplayer game developer for the next generation of gaming platforms. This commitment to excellence ensures that the long-term aspiration of making Threewave an industry leader of multiplayer content is fulfilled.
Jerome Kashetsky
National Research Council of Canada
Jerome Kashetsky is an Industrial Technology Advisor for the National Research Council of Canada, providing technical and business advice to Canadian new media firms, as well as contributing financially to eligible research and development projects. He is one of the founders of New Media BC, the multimedia association of British Columbia, Canada, and has been involved in technology transfer between Canada, China, India, and Singapore. With 25 years of technical and business development experience in both the private and federal government sectors, Jerome brings to the game space his enthusiasm as a Professional Engineer and Professional Photographer.
Colin Macrae
Director of Communications
Electronic Arts
Colin Macrae has almost 20 years experience in all facets of public relations and communications. He has provided communications planning, media relations, strategic writing, issue management, and business planning services to a number of leading organizations, both as an in-house employee and outside counsel.
Colin joined Electronic Arts in January 2006. As Director of Communications, he leads global internal/employee communications for the company, as well as corporate communications and public affairs for EA in Canada. Prior to coming to EA, he operated his own Vancouver-based consulting practice, Colin Macrae Communications + Business Strategy. His areas of industry expertise include entertainment, telecommunications, and technology.
Gerri Sinclair
Great Northern Way Campus
Dr. Gerri Sinclair is currently the Executive Director of the Masters of Digital Media Program at Great Northern Way Campus, a collaborative partnership between the University of B.C., Simon Fraser University, Emily Carr Institute of Art + Design, and the B.C. Institute of Technology. Most recently she was the Chair of the Canadian Federal Government’s Telecom Policy Review Panel, advising the Federal Government on the future policy and regulatory environment required to support an advanced telecommunications framework. She was also the General Manager of MSN Canada and a senior member of the Microsoft executive team, as well as the founder and CEO of NCompass Labs, an Internet content management company acquired by Microsoft in 2001. A former visiting scientist at IBM Research, Dr. Sinclair was also the president of the British Columbia Government Premier’s Technology Council, and the founding director of the ExCITE lab at Simon Fraser University, the first multimedia educational technology centre in Canada. She has served on several government and corporate boards including Telus Corporation and BC Telecom, and is currently a director of the Toronto Stock Exchange, Ballard Power, and the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
She is the recipient of the YWCA Woman of Distinction award, the Canadian Women in Communications’ Woman of the Year award, the Canadian Women in New Media Pioneer award, the Influential Woman in Business award, the Sarah Kirke award for the most outstanding Canadian woman in High Tech, the 2005 Canadian Consumer Choice Award for Business Woman of the Year, and most recently the 2008 Canadian Public Policy Forum Testimonial Award. She holds a Ph.D. in Renaissance drama as well as an honorary Doctor of Science in Computer Science from the University of British Columbia.
Kerry Whalen
Ubisoft
Kerry is currently Producer at Ubisoft Vancouver, managing one of the studio’s production teams. He has 14 years of industry experience including stops at Electronic Arts, and as one of the original members of start-up Action Pants Inc. a small boutique developer in Vancouver that was eventually acquired by Ubisoft. Kerry has 18 shipped titles under his belt dating back to 1996, in game design and production roles (notably FIFA, and the "Street" series).
Tarrnie Williams
EA SPORTS
Tarrnie Williams is currently the Executive Producer of EA SPORTS Active, an innovative and inspiring interactive fitness product that offers personalized workouts that can be done from the comfort of home. He has 20 years of games industry experience, having served in multiple production and executive roles at Electronic Arts in their Vancouver and Los Angeles studios, and as studio head of one of the most acclaimed developers in the industry, Relic Entertainment. During this time, Tarrnie has overseen award-winning game franchises across multiple genres, such as Need For Speed, Medal of Honor, NBA Live, Dawn of War, and Company of Heroes. He is passionate about innovation, creativity, online connectivity, and bringing the joy of interactive to an ever widening audience.
Kelly Zmak
Independent
Kelly Zmak, was the President of Radical Entertainment from July 2005 to March 2010. During that time, he was responsible for overseeing the studio's operations as well as all product development initiatives. Kelly has held multiple roles within gaming industry ranging for QA (1985) to Executive Management. He is an active participant and advisor with GDC Canada, The Canadian Digital Arts Awards and BC Interactive. Kelly is an accomplished speaker and has had the privilege of promoting our industry around the world. With nearly 25 years of experience, Kelly has worked with many of the top publisher and has had the opportunity to work with some of the brightest and talented development teams in the industry.
Learn more about GDC Canada Conference Tracks here.
