Speakers

KAI BOLIK CEO and Co-Founder GameDuell Kai Bolik is CEO and co-founder of GameDuell. As a serial entrepreneur, he contributes the strategic vision and management experience that has made GameDuell one of the best monetizing and one of the largest cross-platform social games communities worldwide. In operation since 2003, the company grew profitably from zero to more than 70 million registered users. Popular titles like Bubble Popp and Jungle Jewels are played across GameDuell branded sites, social networks and mobile platforms like Android and iOS. More than 200 employees in Berlin, Asia and San Francisco are accompanying GameDuell on its journey into the future. Kai holds an 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.

Opening Keynote: The Future of Social Games: How to Be Part of It May 23, 2012 | 9:00am - 9:45am

OSCAR CLARK Evangelist Papaya Mobile Oscar has a passion for online entertainment and community and has spent much of the last 12 years on the bleeding edge of this technology. As a product and business strategist with more than a decade's experience in this relatively young industry Oscar has a keen insight into what works for businesses trying to engage communities and how to turn that into revenue. Oscar has a substantial senior executive background in telco, mobile and games having recently been Architect for the Sony Computer Entertainment Home world where he was custodian of the requirements and long term vision for this social gaming platform on PlayStation3. Prior to that he was in charge of Mobile Operator Strategy EMEA for nVidia looking at how to bring next generation 3D accellerated gaming to mobile phones and was delivering content for 3G at THREE. He started his career with BT and Real Networks.

The Small Screen’s Time to Shine: A Discussion on the Emergence of Mobile Social May 23, 2012 | 1:45pm - 2:15pm Social and Online Games: Is This the End or the Beginning of Revenues? May 23, 2012 | 3:30pm - 4:15pm

GEOFF COOK CEO myYearbook @geoffcook Geoff Cook is now the CEO of his third multi-million dollar Internet enterprise, all grown from zero traffic and zero revenue to significant market-leading properties. In 1997, at age 19, Geoff founded EssayEdge.com and ResumeEdge.com from a Harvard dorm room. Each property dominated their respective niches: admissions essay and resume writing help. He then sold his companies to The Thomson Corporation where he led the Consumer Market Group for a Thomson Learning division, departing Thomson in 2005. Geoff has been featured in Wired, Rolling Stone, ABC News, CNBC, and USA Today. In 2005, Geoff became the CEO of myYearbook, joining forces with his siblings. Geoff was instrumental in raising $20+ million in angel financing, venture capital, and venture debt to build the young company into the largest US social media site. Geoff has an A.B. in Economics from Harvard University and lives in New Jersey with his wife Kerri and daughters Madeline and Elyse.

The Future of Mobile Monetization May 24, 2012 | 9:15am - 10:00am

KHALED HELIOUI Investor TA Associates @khelioui Khaled is an investor at TA Associates and focuses his efforts on the Technology space, most particularly Internet and Digital Media, across Europe. On top of the recent investment in Bigpoint he has been involved in portfolio management with companies such as eDreams, Fotolia and eCircle. He was formerly an Investment Banker at UBS in the Tech group where he worked in a number of M&A and capital raising mandates including the acquisitions of Cryptic Studios by Atari and Eidos by Square Enix. Khaled holds a Master in Science in Telecommunications Engineering from Telecom SudParis and is a board observer on Fotolia and Bigpoint.

Investing in Virtual Goods Businesses May 23, 2012 | 1:00pm - 1:45pm

HENNING KOSMACK Founder and CEO MegaZebra GmbH @megazebra Henning is the CEO of MegaZebra, one of Europe’s leading social gaming companies. MegaZebra not only develops it’s own games, but also publishes 3rd party games on Facebook. For more then 10 years, Henning has been actively involved in the fields of innovation and investments, from being on the board of software firms, co-founding other start-ups, to investing into them. He also headed up the corporate development activities at Siemens’ communication division and was one of the project leaders in the merger integration to form Nokia Siemens Networks. Prior to that, he studied Business Administration in London and Copenhagen.

Social and Online Games: Is This the End or the Beginning of Revenues? May 23, 2012 | 3:30pm - 4:15pm Social Games 2015: Where to now? May 24, 2012 | 3:45pm - 4:30pm

JUSSI LAAKKONEN CEO & Founder Applifier @jussil Jussi Laakkonen is the CEO and founder of Applifier, the largest cross-promotion network for social games and applications that now reaches over 55 million monthly active users on Facebook. He pivoted Everyplay, a social gaming startup he had founded in 2008, into Applifier to help other developers and publishers grow their social applications through cross-promotion. Previously Jussi was the business development director for Bugbear Entertainment, a console racing game developer, where he closed several multimillion euro game deals and produced console and handheld games including Sega Rally for PSP and the FlatOut series. Jussi has been an entrepreneur since his teens and for nearly 20 years he has been one of the main organizers of Assembly, an annual 5000 person, around the clock, four day computer festival Finland. Jussi blogs infrequently at http://jussilaakkonen.wordpress.com and tries to remember tweet more often at @jussil.

The Small Screen’s Time to Shine: A Discussion on the Emergence of Mobile Social May 23, 2012 | 1:45pm - 2:15pm Social Games 2015: Where to now? May 24, 2012 | 3:45pm - 4:30pm

ARSENY LEBEDEV Managing Director SignusLabs @signuslabs Arseny Lebedev co-founded Signus Labs, where he manages marketing and partnership strategies. Since its founding in 2009, Signus Labs grew organically to a 22-person full service development studio that delivers high quality work on multiple platforms to millions of players. Arseny follows a balanced development philosophy -- gameplay and profitability are fundamental to a successful project. Signus develops social games on Facebook, Mobile Platforms, Kindle, and HTML5. Prior to Signus, Labs Arseny worked in a marketing role at Large Animal Games. Additionally, Arseny resides on the board of a solar energy manufacturer, where he contributes to strategic decisions.

Multiplatform Games: Designing for the Future May 24, 2012 | 2:15pm - 3:00pm

NICHOLAS LOVELL Founder Gamesbrief @nicholaslovell Nicholas Lovell is a former investment banker and web entrepreneur who helps games developers become publishers. He also provides strategic and online marketing advice and is a non-executive director at developer nDreams. Clients have included Atari, Channel4, Channelflip, Firefly (who recently self-published MMO Stronghold Kingdoms), IPC Media, Rebellion and Square Enix. He is the author of How to Publish a Game and blogs about the business of games at www.gamesbrief.com.

Investing in Virtual Goods Businesses May 23, 2012 | 1:00pm - 1:45pm Benchmarks and Metrics: Forecasting and Improving Your Free-to-Play Game May 23, 2012 | 4:15pm - 5:00pm

DIEGO MELLER Co-Founder Jampp @diemel Diego Meller is a co-founder of Jampp, a Latin American gaming monetization and distribution platform. The company launched in 2010 as a social games studio (Atommica) and then developed Jampp which is now its main business. Before Jampp, in 1999 while at university in Buenos Aires, Diego co-founded Livra.com which became the leading online research company in Latin America and was acquired by Ipsos (one of the top market research organizations worldwide) in 2008. Diego is also a co-founder & collaborator of The Whuffie Bank (a non-profit project that was a 2009 TC50 finalist) and angel investor in several startups, including online strategy game Erepublik.

Social Gaming in Latin America: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly May 24, 2012 | 11:15am - 12:00pm

LLOYD MELNICK CEO 519 Games @LloydMelnick Lloyd Melnick is currently CEO of 519 Games, a social web and mobile gaming joint venture between the E.W. Scripps Company and Capitol Broadcasting. They are currently building an extraordinary team and will be releasing their first titlesearly 2012. Lloyd previously led the international publishing business at Playdom (The Walt Disney Company’s social gaming group) - a business he built from the ground up. He had full accountability for Europe, the Middle East, Africa (EMEA), Latin America, Russia and India and had created a lucrative global business which now generates a sizable portion of the company's total traffic. Previously, he co-founded Merscom, a casual and social game publisher that was acquired by Playdom in April, 2010. In addition to negotiating the sale of Merscom to Playdom, he initiated and managed Merscom’s strategic partnerships with global media companies, including AETN Lifetime, Paramount, National Geographic, Starz Entertainment, Lionsgate, CBS, CAA, Showtime and Granada Ventures.

Beyond Performance Marketing: Survival Tips for Social Gaming Publishers May 23, 2012 | 11:00am - 11:45am

BRET TERRILL Blogger and Consultant Bret on Social Games Bret is a pioneer in social gaming, founding one of the first social gaming companies in early 2007 with a focus on real-time multiplayer games. It failed. He took those lessons and shared them via a blog and became the first social gaming industry analyst. He took that expertise to Zynga, joining in 2008 as Director of Business Development and then transitioning to Senior Director of Corporate Development. He now consults for companies applying social game mechanics to non-gaming verticals.

The Small Screen’s Time to Shine: A Discussion on the Emergence of Mobile Social May 23, 2012 | 1:45pm - 2:15pm Social Games 2015: Where to now? May 24, 2012 | 3:45pm - 4:30pm

CHRISTIAN THALER Associate Wellington Partners At Wellington Partners, Christian focuses on working with the Digital Media and Software investment team on identifying exciting investment opportunities and building relationships with the great entrepreneurs behind these companies. He started his career in 2001 at ORACLE, one of the global leaders in the software industry. In 2007 he joined the management team of venture backed private student loan provider CareerConcept AG as Director of Business Development. Christian holds a MBA from INSEAD and has studied international economics in Budapest and Toronto.

Investing in Virtual Goods Businesses May 23, 2012 | 1:00pm - 1:45pm

DARYA TRUSHKINA VP of Business Development Game Insight Darya leads the team, which handles international publishing of GI's games on the world's largest social networks, mobile platforms and develops business relationship with payment solutions providers. Since she joined Game Insight, Darya developed and brought the company's products into global social gaming markets including networks in USA, Europe, Canada, Latin America, Korea and Japan thus, making international direction the most profitable division of the company. Before joining Game Insight, Darya worked as Independent Consultant on investments and conducted assessment of investment attractiveness of private/public enterprises. Darya holds Master Degree in Economics from Kharkiv University of Humanities "People's Ukrainian Academy" (Ukraine) and Master Degree in Public Policy and Management from University of Southern Maine (USA).

The Small Screen’s Time to Shine: A Discussion on the Emergence of Mobile Social May 23, 2012 | 1:45pm - 2:15pm

JOOST VAN DREUNEN Managing Director SuperData Research, Inc. @_SuperData Joost van Dreunen, Ph.D., is Managing Director at SuperData Research, a market intelligence provider specialized in online games. Prior to founding the company, Joost worked as an analyst covering media, technology, telecom and entertainment for research firms such as Nielsen Online and DFC Intelligence. He has written extensively on online audiences, monetization strategies, virtual goods, social games, free-to-play, online gaming and entertainment. Joost teaches at the NYU Game Center, and holds a doctorate degree from Columbia University.

A Global Comparison of Online Game Markets: Brazil, Germany, USA and Russia May 23, 2012 | 9:45am - 10:30am One Bet to Rule Them All: Wagering the Emergence of Online Gambling May 23, 2012 | 2:15pm - 3:00pm

JURGEN WEICHERT Co-Founder and Chief Sales Officer deal united Jürgen Weichert is the co-founder and Chief Sales Officer of deal united, a Red Herring Global award-winning company. As a B2B sales expert in the virtual goods industry, he works to provide merchants and advertising partners with PAY.BY.SHOPPING, the monetization solution and innovative payment platform from deal united. Prior to deal united, Jürgen spent eight years in various executive and management positions at asknet, a leading global eCommerce service provider for software and other digital goods. During his tenure there, Jürgen helped asknet enter the European and North American markets. He also took part in the launch of a Japanese joint venture with Softbank. Jürgen has been active in the global internet industry since 1998.

Social and Online Games: Is This the End or the Beginning of Revenues? May 23, 2012 | 3:30pm - 4:15pm

PETER WEXLER Senior Director of Strategic Partnerships TrialPay @TrialPay Peter Wexler is TrialPay’s Senior Director of Strategic Partnerships, where he is responsible for all worldwide advertising partnership initiatives. Peter comes to TrialPay from GetConnected, Inc. where he held senior business development and account management positions focused on growing industry adoption of GetConnected’s digital services platform. Earlier in his career, Peter held senior leadership positions with both Grant Thornton LLP and Arthur Andersen LLP, specializing in network security implementation and consulting as well as financial data modeling solutions. Peter holds a BS from the University of Delaware and an MBA with a concentration in Entrepreneurship from Babson.

Connecting Brands With Social Games May 24, 2012 | 10:30am - 11:15am

BRIAN WONG Founder kiip @brian_wong Brian is the founder of kiip (pronounced "keep"), a stealth startup focused on mobile in-game advertising, backed by True Ventures. Very recently, Techcrunch and the Wall Street Journal called him the "youngest person to ever receive funding by a venture capital firm". Last year, at only 18-years-old, he was an early Bachelors of Commerce graduate from the University of British Columbia, after skipping four grades in elementary and high school. Before starting kiip, Brian was responsible for key publisher and tech partnerships at the social news website Digg.com. He also launched the Digg Android mobile app, adding to the company's rising mobile presence. He began his career after University by creating the world's first categorized Twitter discovery tool: Followformation.com. Followformation was touted as one of the best Twitter user discovery tools in Mashable, The Huffington Post, Fast Company, and more.

Incorporating the Moments-based Ad Model: Why Display Was Ported to In-Game Advertising and Not Evolved May 24, 2012 | 1:30pm - 2:15pm

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