Pete Parsons, Bungie

Pete rejoins Bungie Studios as the company prepares for significant growth over the next five years. Earlier in his career, Pete spent 10-years as Studio Manager of Bungie Studios where he oversaw the development of Halo 2 and Halo 3. During that time, he worked to create one of Meteor Solutions main components – the Meteor Tracker and Meteor Ignite.  Between his stints at Bungie, Pete served as Chief of Products for Meteor, Pete oversaw the direction of the technology and helped to secure partnerships for the company.  Previously, Pete also served as Director of Marketing and Advertising for Microsoft's Xbox first-party games, where he handpicked the team that oversaw one of the most successful software launches in video game console history. 


Chris Taylor, CEO & Founder, Gas Powered Games

For the past 20 years, Chris Taylor has been one of the game industry’s most imaginative and dynamic visionaries. The creator of the first true next-generation RTS game, Total Annihilation, Taylor enjoys an industry-wide reputation as an innovator who is able to push both technology and gameplay to their limits.

Prior to Z2Live, David was CEO of NextMedium, the first online marketplace for product placement advertising. Prior to NextMedium, David served as CEO and Chairman of GoTV Networks, the largest made-for-mobile television production studio in North America. Prior to GoTV, David was CEO at WUF Networks, a privately held company that allowed mobile users to access and stream rich media to their mobile phones. WUF helped pioneer mobile music and was acquired in 2004 by Yahoo! to power their Yahoo Music service. In 2000, David co-founded and served as President of (M)Forma (now HandsOn Mobile). While there, HandsOn grew into one of the industry’s leading providers of mobile games and wireless entertainment reaching over 600 million subscribers across 60+ carrier networks in 23 different countries. 
 

Jason Robar, VP, The Amazing Society - A Gazillion Entertainment Game Studio

Jason Robar joined Microsoft in 1994 to make Windows a better gaming platform. In the Developer Relations Group, he was responsible for establishing relationships for Microsoft with almost all game publishers and developers worldwide. In 1999, he joined Microsoft's game division and worked toward expanding the role of Zone.com in supporting online gaming. In 2000, he joined Go2Net to hlpe lead Playsite.com to be a cross-device gaming platform.

In 2001, he started an independent game industry consulting group working on ousourcing in Asia, game design, technology, and business development with a focus on online, MMPs, advergaming, Asian markets, and the convergence between the game industry and the government modeling, simulation and training industry. In 2004, he lead the development of a major training game for DARPA called DARWARS Ambush! to help in training of convoy personnel. 

In 2005, he founded Secret Lair Studios/Studio Ch'in, an independent development group with teams in Seattle, Washington, USA and Shanghai, China. The group was working on PC MMORPG technology and content for western and Chinese markets, and also secured rights to develop on Xbox260 Live Arcade, including projects like Carcassonne for XBLA. In 2006, Sierra Online acquired the group to form their internal development team.

In 2008, Jason formed The Amazing Society, now a studio of Gazillion Entertainment. The Amazing Society is focused on making online games for kids and families with Marvel Super Hero Squad Online as their first project.


Jeremiah Slaczka, Founder & Creative Director, 5TH Cell

Mr. Mefford works with developers and jurisdictions on public-private partnerships, economic development and planning projects. He leads market and feasibility analyses; economic and financial analysis; and policy analysis. Recent projects have had an emphasis on financial planning and economic benefits. In past years, Mr. Mefford and Community Attributes have helped the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation connect their strategies and programs to demographics and economic impacts to improve program design.

Chris has more than 15 years of experience analyzing regional economic trends in the Puget Sound region. Mr. Mefford holds an M.B.A. from the University of Washington; an M.S. in Urban and Regional Planning (University of Iowa); B.A. in Mathematics (Economics minor, University of Northern Iowa). He is an alumnus and an active member of Leadership Tomorrow Seattle, serving on the LT Curriculum Committee.

Kristina Hudson, Director, enterpriseSeattle's Washington Interactive Network

Kristina has 14 years of experience in entertainment and economic development. She joined enterpriseSeattle in early 2006 as Business Development Manager specializing in Interactive and Digital Media Technology. In 2004, Kristina founded the Washington Interactive Network, and brought this program with her to enterpriseSeattle. This was the first economic development program in the United States to be targeted solely at the video game industry. For the last two years, Kristina received the distinction of winning awards from the International Economic Development Association: One for the best Technology-Based Economic Development Program; and the second for the annual Power of Play Event.

Primary activities for the Washington Interactive Network are: Game Industry Start Up 101 Workshop Series, and the Annual Power of Play Events. 

Previously, Kristina spent 11 years with Washington State Film Office, she worked to market the state, and to bring film and television production business to the state of Washington. Some of her projects include A Guy Thing (MGM), The Fugitive (Warner Bros. TV series), Rock Star (Warner Bros.), The Postman (Warner Bros.), Nike, Chevrolet, Acura, Nissan, and many more.