Speakers
We will soon announce Program's details and more speakers !
Kai Bolik
Kai Bolik is co-founder and CEO of GameDuell. As a serial entrepreneur, he contributes the strategic vision and management experience. Prior to GameDuell, Kai worked in various management positions at Bertelsmann. Earlier in his career he worked as a strategic consultant at the Boston Consulting Group. Kai holds a MS in computer science from the City University of New York, a Diploma in Telecommunications from the Technical University of Berlin and an MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management.
"GameDuell is the most exciting company I've ever worked at. The challenge to satisfy millions of our community members from all over the world gets me out of bed every day with new energy."
"GameDuell is the most exciting company I've ever worked at. The challenge to satisfy millions of our community members from all over the world gets me out of bed every day with new energy."
Gaël Bonnafous
Based in Montpellier, SCIMOB is a self-funded and fully independent studio developing smart casual games on mobile platforms. Founded by Gaël BONNAFOUS in 2008 as a mobile service provider, the company took the game shift in 2012 with the launch of "94 Seconds".
Luciano Broussal
Luciano is Co-Founder & CTO of Nuggeta. He is specialized in the development of distributed systems. The advent of the connected time is a wonderful playground construction for him. He's always thinking connected softwares and wants to make simple things complicated. He is at the origin of ex nihilo open source projects such as Pony-SDK & GWM. First of all Luciano's motivation is in the journey and not in the destination.
Bastien Cazenave
Co-creator of hit social game of investigation Criminal Case, Bastien co-founded Pretty Simple in 2010 with Corentin Raux. He was among the first in France to start creating social games on Facebook in 2007. Bastien’s first million DAU game dates back to 2009, with Treasure Madness. He has worked in engineering since 2000, including over five years at IBM, and is a graduate of Ecole Centrale Paris.
Jean-Vincent Chardon
From an ad-serving and online advertising background, JV has worked for Keljob.com in Paris before moving to London in 2004 to join Microsoft Advertising where he took an early interest in emerging media. Particularly keen on exploring gaming advertising opportunities since then, he's been involved with in-game advertising platform JOGO media and sports game publisher Greentube before joining Tapjoy in 2011 to develop relationships with apps developers across EMEA, helping them acquire, retain and monetize mobile users.
Mélanie Christin
Mélanie Christin is the co-founder and Art Director of Atelier 801, founded in 2011 on the success of the multiplayer online browser game Transformice. Created in 2010 by Mélanie and her partner Jean-Baptiste Le Marchand, the game quickly encountered a huge success, with now over 31 million accounts created, and a 3M active monthly playerbase.
Atelier 801 now employs 12 people, dedicated to Transformice but also developping more games and two mobile apps. Among them, Celousco is the next big project of Atelier 801, consisting of a browser massively multiplayer battle arena involving more than 8000 players on the same battle map.
The business model is 100% based on the selling of virtual goods, with 96% of the revenue generated outside France.
Atelier 801 now employs 12 people, dedicated to Transformice but also developping more games and two mobile apps. Among them, Celousco is the next big project of Atelier 801, consisting of a browser massively multiplayer battle arena involving more than 8000 players on the same battle map.
The business model is 100% based on the selling of virtual goods, with 96% of the revenue generated outside France.
Julien Codorniou
Julien Codorniou serves as head of European gaming partnerships at Facebook, supporting the growth of the social gaming ecosystem in Europe (Wooga, King.com, Rovio, etc..).
Julien also heads up Facebook partnerships with media, commerce and mobile partners in France and Benelux, where he oversees partner relations for companies building on Facebook Platform (Deezer, Dailymotion, NRJ Group, Free, Canal Plus, RTL, vente-privee.com...) Prior to joining Facebook, Julien was director of business development at Microsoft (in Paris and Redmond, WA), where he led the global launch of the Microsoft BizSpark Program and managed the team responsible for creating and managing strategic partnerships in France. He started his career in the venture capital industry. Julien graduated from Skema Business School and San Diego State University. He currently serves at the Boards of Le Monde (société éditrice du Monde) and Avanquest Software (Euronext: AVQ). He’s the author of the book: “The Kelkoo.com success story”, published by Pearson in 2005. He is married, father of 2, and resides in Paris.
Julien also heads up Facebook partnerships with media, commerce and mobile partners in France and Benelux, where he oversees partner relations for companies building on Facebook Platform (Deezer, Dailymotion, NRJ Group, Free, Canal Plus, RTL, vente-privee.com...) Prior to joining Facebook, Julien was director of business development at Microsoft (in Paris and Redmond, WA), where he led the global launch of the Microsoft BizSpark Program and managed the team responsible for creating and managing strategic partnerships in France. He started his career in the venture capital industry. Julien graduated from Skema Business School and San Diego State University. He currently serves at the Boards of Le Monde (société éditrice du Monde) and Avanquest Software (Euronext: AVQ). He’s the author of the book: “The Kelkoo.com success story”, published by Pearson in 2005. He is married, father of 2, and resides in Paris.
Fabien Delpiano - Pasta Games
Jonathan Ferrebeuf
Jonathan co-founded Purple Brain to help android game developers getting more engaged users and revenues from their games.
Purple Brain develops 2 solutions, Giftiz and AdBuddiz.
Giftiz is a unique tool for android developers to get engaged users for their games.
AdBuddiz is a premium interstitials ad solution dedicated to game developers, which drives the highest CPMs on the market.
Prior to creating Purple Brain, Jonathan led the Business Development team from MMO Game publisher, Boostr.
He also conducted the first strategic mapping of the online and mobile gaming actors in partnership with Hi-Media.
Jonathan graduated from Essec Business School.
Purple Brain develops 2 solutions, Giftiz and AdBuddiz.
Giftiz is a unique tool for android developers to get engaged users for their games.
AdBuddiz is a premium interstitials ad solution dedicated to game developers, which drives the highest CPMs on the market.
Prior to creating Purple Brain, Jonathan led the Business Development team from MMO Game publisher, Boostr.
He also conducted the first strategic mapping of the online and mobile gaming actors in partnership with Hi-Media.
Jonathan graduated from Essec Business School.
Richard Firminger
As Managing Director of Europe, Richard leads the company’s UK office as well as advertiser sales and publisher relationships across Europe. Prior to Flurry, Richard led the digital media sales team for Amazon in Europe. Prior to Amazon, Richard was Commercial Director for Northern Europe for Yahoo!, UK MD for Enpocket (sold to Nokia to become Nokia Media Business in 2006), UK Deputy MD & BD Director for AdLink (a direct response media sales organization, sold to HiMedia in 2009) and the first UK Commercial Director for DoubleClick, subsequently sold to AdLink in 2001. Prior to DoubleClick Richard spent nearly 10 years in B2B publishing in tech press on titles such as Computing and Personal Computer World and during this time he launched Information Week and Computer Reseller News in the UK for CMP Media.
Fred Hasson
Career in broadcasting and Tv production, dot com's/internet and computer games, where he founded both Tiga (CEO, 2000-8) and EGDF(Chairman 2005-9).
Fred has invested and mentored various SMe's and start-ups companies including Victoria Real which was acquired by Endemol in 2000-1.
Games Capital is founded on Fred's extensive contacts and knowledge of these industries, and focused on business development and financing.
Games Capital advises and facilitates the Nordic Games Conference content on Business and Financing of games companies, and has recently launched its 'Accelerate Away' programme.
Fred has invested and mentored various SMe's and start-ups companies including Victoria Real which was acquired by Endemol in 2000-1.
Games Capital is founded on Fred's extensive contacts and knowledge of these industries, and focused on business development and financing.
Games Capital advises and facilitates the Nordic Games Conference content on Business and Financing of games companies, and has recently launched its 'Accelerate Away' programme.
Jaakko Iisalo - Rovio Entertainment
Olivier Issaly
Olivier Issaly is the co-founder and actual Managing Director of Owlient, an online game studio designing browser games. With horse riding (howrse.com) and child-rearing (babydow.com), Owlient has built a 50M player worldwide community since 2005, 2.5M of which are active every month. Based in Paris, the company employs 45 people, with 75% of its revenue generated outside France. Its business model is 90% based on selling virtual goods, which attracted the interest of Ubisoft who bought the studio in 2011.
Alexis Jolis-Desautels
Part of Ubisoft Montreal since 2004, Alexis is a Senior Game Designer that has worked, amongst others, on Splinter Cell: Double Agent, TMNT, Lost: Via Domus and Shaun White Skateboarding. After teaching game design at the Ubisoft Campus, he specialized as a teacher and internal trainer. He is now, like most of us, looking for the Gaming Holy Grail, and is on a lead that it may be found inside the gamer’s brain...
Andreas Lober
Dr. Andreas Lober studied law in Tuebingen, Germany, and Aix-en-Provence, France. He is a lawyer qualified in Germany and holds a French “maîtrise en droit – mention droit international” from the University of Aix-en-Provence as well as a doctor’s degree from Tuebingen University.
He was admitted to the bar in 2001, joined Schulte Riesenkampff in 2003 and became a partner of the firm in 2006. His book “Virtuelle Welten werden real” (Virtual worlds become reality ) was published by Telepolis in 2007.
A gaming enthusiast since the early days of home computers, Andreas has done work in the gaming space since 1991. During his studies, he worked for various companies in the gaming business and managed Germany's first commercial gaming website. He founded a website on web-based games as well as Europe's premier conference for web-based games, the browsergames forum.
Today, Andreas is counsel to some of the leading developers and publishers of online and mobile games.
For several years, Andreas is ranked amongst the five most influential gaming lawyers in Germany by JUVE Handbook (leading guide to German commercial law firms). He is also recommended by Chambers & Partners for his media work.
He was admitted to the bar in 2001, joined Schulte Riesenkampff in 2003 and became a partner of the firm in 2006. His book “Virtuelle Welten werden real” (Virtual worlds become reality ) was published by Telepolis in 2007.
A gaming enthusiast since the early days of home computers, Andreas has done work in the gaming space since 1991. During his studies, he worked for various companies in the gaming business and managed Germany's first commercial gaming website. He founded a website on web-based games as well as Europe's premier conference for web-based games, the browsergames forum.
Today, Andreas is counsel to some of the leading developers and publishers of online and mobile games.
For several years, Andreas is ranked amongst the five most influential gaming lawyers in Germany by JUVE Handbook (leading guide to German commercial law firms). He is also recommended by Chambers & Partners for his media work.
Mathieu Nouzareth
Paris-born, serial web entrepreneur Mathieu Nouzareth is CEO of Freshplanet, the New York-based developer of the highly-popular social mobile game SongPop, the turn-by-turn, simulated real-time play game for music lovers that has built a global following of over 20 Million players since its launch in June 2012. Mathieu Nouzareth began his career in 1995 at 23 by co-founding WebConcept, one of France’s first e-business consulting firms. WebConcept was sold to Sweden’s IconMedialab of Sweden in 1999, and is one the largest internet consultancy companies in the world (NYSE-Euronext : LBI). From 1999 to 2001, Mathieu acted as CEO of IconMedialab France. In 2001, Mathieu and his brother Romain started Boonty.com, a digital game distribution company. Operating in over 30 countries with a staff of 180, the company was sold to Nexway (France) in 2008 and is currently one of the world’s leading game distribution paltforms. In 2006, the Nouzareth brothers founded Is Cool Entertainment, social casual game publisher which is now listed on the NYSE-Alternext market (ALIS) and has become one Europe’s largest Facebook game developers. In 2009, Mathieu moved to New York where he and Romain founded the game company, FreshPlanet, where Mathieu currently acts as CEO. In addition to SongPop, Freshplanet is the developer and publisher of games including Spa Life and Dreamland. Mathieu is a graduate of the Grenoble School of Management and holds an MBA from Pace University in New York. He is a frequent panelist at tech conferences such as LeWeb Paris, CES Las Vegas, GDC, Casual Connect, and CrunchUp.
François Pacot
François Pacot created RoyalCactus in 2010, when he was still a student at the ENST Bretagne (National Superior Telecommunications School). After his graduation, he went 6 month at the UCLA to study Web Marketing. Once he got in Los Angeles, he analyzed deeply the Social Gaming market, which was then ready to explode in the US.
Back in France, he dedicates himself entirely to the development of his company.
Confident in the capacity of RoyalCactus to grow rapidly, François decided then to raise funds from XAnge Private Equity, which allowed him to assemble a strong team of experienced professionals coming from the casual games industry.
18 months later, the results can clearly be seen. Indeed, RoyalCactus is now one of the five biggest Social Gaming editors in France on the Facebook platform, and continues its growth at a steady pace.
Back in France, he dedicates himself entirely to the development of his company.
Confident in the capacity of RoyalCactus to grow rapidly, François decided then to raise funds from XAnge Private Equity, which allowed him to assemble a strong team of experienced professionals coming from the casual games industry.
18 months later, the results can clearly be seen. Indeed, RoyalCactus is now one of the five biggest Social Gaming editors in France on the Facebook platform, and continues its growth at a steady pace.
Thierry Platon - BiP media
Corentin Raux
Co-creator of hit social game of investigation Criminal Case, Corentin co-founded Pretty Simple in 2010 with Bastien Cazenave. He was among the first in France to start creating social games on Facebook in 2007. Corentin’s first million DAU game dates back to 2009, with Treasure Madness. He is a Telecom ParisTech engineering graduate with creative experience in the film industry. He notably produced hit web series “La Chanson du Dimanche”, and also wrote and co-directed comedy movie “L’incruste”.
Vincent Ricordeau
Vincent Ricordeau is autodidact and serial entrepreneur. Crowdfunding and sharing economy pioneer, he is promoting the third industrial revolution. He has found his first company at 18 years old, has traveled around the word during five years, and has launched his second company in 1998 (Call Center) where he is still shareholder today. In 2000, he is integrating VNU Publishing (hi-tech magazines) during the first Internet bubble, and joined Sportive (world leader in Sports Marketing) in 2003. He has launched KissKissBankBank in 2008 with Ombline Le Lasseur Ricordeau and Adrien Aumont to unleash creativity wherever it hides.
Gilles Vercken
Gilles Vercken is member of the Paris bar since 1995 and dedicates his practise essentially to intellectual property and information technology law.
In 1987, Gilles Vercken began his career as a jurist, working for the SACEM (french copyright collectives for authors, composers and music publishers).
He then occupied the position of head of the private contracts and judicial affairs sector, assistant of the director of the audiovisual branch within the SACD (french copyright collectives for dramatic authors and composers), before becoming the chief legal officer of the TV channels Planète, Canal Jimmy, Ciné Cinémas, Ciné Cinéphile et Télé Monte Carlo. As soon as 1993, he also became Secretary General of Art 3000 (1st innovative organization in France dealing with art and digital technology) and has been consulted as legal expert attached to the European Commission for intellectual property and digital issues. He also qualified in Management (HEC, Challenge Plus - innovative company) in 1994.
In 1995, Gilles Vercken founded his own law firm, and then joined the british law firm Denton Wilde Sapte, where he headed the Technology Media Telecommunications department for three years, before re-creating his law firm in 2005.
In collaboration with the Law Professor Valérie-Laure Benabou, the firm is today a structured team of six lawyers.
Gilles Vercken is as well a guest lecturer for several master’s degree programs (universities of Aix-Marseille, Nantes, Sciences politiques Paris, Strasbourg, Versailles Saint-Quentin, etc.).
Effective member of various professionnal associations (among them the french association of software publishers – AFDEL, the french association for the international protection of copyright – AFPIDA-ALAI, the association of practitioners of trademark and design law – APRAM, the Trans Europe Experts - European network of legal experts, the international association of entertainment lawyers – IAEL, etc.), he attends to numerous conferences and symposiums.
Moreover, Gilles Vercken is the author of referenced publications and regularly writes articles for the specialized press (Légipresse, Propriétés intellectuelles, Revue internationale du droit d’auteur – RIDA, Revue Lamy Droit de l’Immatériel – RLDI, etc.). Besides being a member of the editorial board of the journal Propriétés Intellectuelles and of the writing committee of the journal Revue Lamy Droit de l’immatériel, he is consulted on IP/IT law topics by general newspapers (such as Libération, le Monde, LCI, 20minutes.fr).
In 1987, Gilles Vercken began his career as a jurist, working for the SACEM (french copyright collectives for authors, composers and music publishers).
He then occupied the position of head of the private contracts and judicial affairs sector, assistant of the director of the audiovisual branch within the SACD (french copyright collectives for dramatic authors and composers), before becoming the chief legal officer of the TV channels Planète, Canal Jimmy, Ciné Cinémas, Ciné Cinéphile et Télé Monte Carlo. As soon as 1993, he also became Secretary General of Art 3000 (1st innovative organization in France dealing with art and digital technology) and has been consulted as legal expert attached to the European Commission for intellectual property and digital issues. He also qualified in Management (HEC, Challenge Plus - innovative company) in 1994.
In 1995, Gilles Vercken founded his own law firm, and then joined the british law firm Denton Wilde Sapte, where he headed the Technology Media Telecommunications department for three years, before re-creating his law firm in 2005.
In collaboration with the Law Professor Valérie-Laure Benabou, the firm is today a structured team of six lawyers.
Gilles Vercken is as well a guest lecturer for several master’s degree programs (universities of Aix-Marseille, Nantes, Sciences politiques Paris, Strasbourg, Versailles Saint-Quentin, etc.).
Effective member of various professionnal associations (among them the french association of software publishers – AFDEL, the french association for the international protection of copyright – AFPIDA-ALAI, the association of practitioners of trademark and design law – APRAM, the Trans Europe Experts - European network of legal experts, the international association of entertainment lawyers – IAEL, etc.), he attends to numerous conferences and symposiums.
Moreover, Gilles Vercken is the author of referenced publications and regularly writes articles for the specialized press (Légipresse, Propriétés intellectuelles, Revue internationale du droit d’auteur – RIDA, Revue Lamy Droit de l’Immatériel – RLDI, etc.). Besides being a member of the editorial board of the journal Propriétés Intellectuelles and of the writing committee of the journal Revue Lamy Droit de l’immatériel, he is consulted on IP/IT law topics by general newspapers (such as Libération, le Monde, LCI, 20minutes.fr).
Vincent Vergonjeanne
Vincent Vergonjeanne is the former CEO & Co-Founder of Kobojo, a European leader in the social gaming industry. He now lives in Krakow, Poland, where he founded a new game studio, EVERYDAYiPLAY, specialized in on-line & mobile gaming for a mid-core audience. Vincent is also a Business Angel, Free-To-Play consultant and a Lean Startup enthusiast. You can follow him on twitter at @vvergon.
Cyril Zimmermann
Cyril Zimmermann has been President of Hi-Media since the company was established. He is a graduate of the European School of Management (ESCP), and of the Institute of Political Studies of Paris, and holds a bachelors degree in history.
