Johnny Monsarrat, CEO
In 1994, Johnny founded Turbine, the first company to begin work building Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games (MMOs), an industry that now earns $43 billion per year. Turbine won “Game of the Year” DICE awards (the “Oscars” of the videogame industry) with hit games Asheron’s Call and Lord of the Rings Online, and was acquired by Warner Brothers for $160 million.
He is an Ivy League award-winning public speaker and Guinness World Record holder with an MIT Sloan MBA. Advisor Jack Tretton, the former President of Sony’s PlayStation division, says, “Johnny is the best communicator and most ‘can-do’ guy that I work with.”
Johnny is also an internationally award-winning artificial intelligence expert from the MIT AI Lab, MIT Media Lab, Harvard, and Brown University, who helped build the world’s first juggling robot and was the first person to drive a robot remotely using the Internet. Johnny’s thesis advisor was Professor Rodney Brooks, Chairman of the MIT AI Lab and founder of iRobot, which makes the Roomba vacuum cleaner robot.
Todd Shallbetter, COO
Todd Shallbetter was a senior executive at Atari for 14 years, including COO of Atari for 6 years. There he managed all aspects of the iconic videogame maker, including business development, game publishing, marketing, management, recruiting, and financing, both day-to-day and leading and implementing the long-term vision and strategy.
His mobile games at Atari included RollerCoaster Tycoon Touch, which has been downloaded more than 30MM times and earned more than $50MM. He also headed Atari’s publishing of Star Trek Online, the hit MMO game, and for the MMO game Champions Online. Most recently, he was SVP Partnerships at Level Ex, creating industry-leading mobile, AR, and VR games for physicians.
Brian Sullivan, Chief Creative Officer
Brian Sullivan is an award-winning game designer and serial entrepreneur. He has cofounded two game companies and co-created Age of Empires, the $1B Microsoft game franchise, and Titan Quest. His games have sold over 25 million copies worldwide and have won countless industry awards.
He has also helped develop the game program at Northeastern University, including teaching game design courses. Previous to working in the games industry, Brian was an IT consultant for over a dozen years. He is a graduate of Carnegie-Mellon University.
Jack Tretton, Advisor
Jack Tretton has 35 years’ experience as an interactive entertainment executive, including as President and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment of America from 2006-2014, with a multi-billion-dollar P&L responsibility. He has launched some of the most successful consumer products of all time, generating record profits and establishing the PlayStation as a worldwide leader.
After being Vice President of Sales at Activision from 1986-1991, he joined Sony Corporation in 1995 and was a key part of the team that created the original PlayStation and was involved in the development and publishing of all major Sony consoles and handhelds, including the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, and also Sony’s first forays into the handheld market, the PlayStation Portable (PSP) and PlayStation Vita.
An industry icon, Jack is a featured global keynote speaker who previously served as Chairman of the Entertainment Software Association, the US video game trade association that organizes Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), the largest digital entertainment conference in the world.
Today, he is President of Coastal Interactive Associates, a global consulting and investment firm providing market analysis, M&A support, strategic management services and funding assistance to the interactive entertainment, consumer products, and consumer electronics industries.
David Anderman, Advisor
David Anderman is a seasoned executive in technology, media, and consumer products, and former General Counsel of SpaceX, Elon Musk’s rocket company, who assisted their 2020 raise of $1.9B.
He previously spent 16 years at Lucasfilm Ltd., George Lucas’s entertainment empire, where as COO he was responsible for the day-to-day business of all subsidiaries.
In 2012, he negotiated the $4 billion acquisition of Lucasfilm by Disney, earning the Variety Dealmaker of the Year Award. He also negotiated deals including:
- First ever presentation of a feature film via digital cinema for Star Wars: Epsiode I
- First satellite distribution of a theatrical release for Star Wars: Episode II
- First user generated fan video site for a major film property, StarWars.com
- Long term license agreements with Hasbro, LEGO, Electronic Arts, Microsoft, Sony Online and others, as well hundreds of merchandise and promotional licenses in over 100 countries for Star Wars and Indiana Jones
- Digital, theatrical, and home video distribution agreements with Fox, Paramount, Warner Bros., Apple, and Yahoo!
In between, he was Chief Business Officer and General Counsel for Jaunt, the AR/VR platform acquired by Verizon, helping raise $125M from Disney, CAA, China Media Capital, and others.
Stephen Saltzman, Advisor
Stephen Saltzman was previously Managing Director for Intel Capital for 16 years, specializing in AR/VR, video games, and esports.
Previously, he helped Intel’s PC Enhancement Operation grow from $6M/year to over $250M/year in 3 years. Then he co-founded Now Software, which became the largest Macintosh-only software publisher in the world. Then he was founder and General Manager of Intel’s Wi-Fi division. Stephen is a former Inc. Magazine-Ernst & Young Software Entrepreneur of the Year finalist and a former Oregon High-Tech Entrepreneur of the Year finalist. His investment portfolio exits include 3eTI (EF Johnson), AeroScout (Stanley Black & Decker), AirMagnet (Danaher), EETI (Taiwan Exchange IPO: 3556), InVisage (Apple), IPass (Nasdaq IPO: IPAS), Jajah (Telefonica) RapidBridge (Qualcomm), SyChip (Murata) and Vocera (Nasdaq IPO: VCRA).
Kate Edwards, Advisor
Kate Edwards has 30+ years’ experience as a private sector geographer, cartographer, and geopolitical and cultural strategist. She pioneered the field of digital content “culturalization” to identify geopolitical and cultural risks and opportunities in corporate products and services, first as Microsoft’s head geopolitical strategist and now as an independent consultant at her company, Geogrify.
She was Executive Director of the International Game Developers Association from 2012 to 2017, and now is Executive Director of the Global Game Jam. During her time at Microsoft and since, she’s worked on many game franchises, including Halo, Fable, Age of Empires, Dragon Age, Modern Warfare, Mass Effect and many others. She’s also the founder of the IGDA’s Localization SIG and co-organizer of the former Localization Summit at GDC. Kate has been a columnist for MultiLingual Computing magazine since 2005.
Sandy Climan, Advisor
Sandy Climan was previously Corporate EVP and President of Worldwide Business Development of Universal Studios.
He started his entertainment career at MGM, holding executive positions in motion picture production and the distribution of films and television. He became the founding head of the corporate practice at Creative Artists Agency, where he represented well-known actors including Robert De Niro, Robert Redford, Kevin Costner, and Danny DeVito, and Oscar-nominated director Michael Mann.
Achievements include: Executive Producer of the first digital live-action 3D feature film, “U2 3D,” and Producer of “The Aviator,” directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, for which he won a BAFTA and a Golden Globe Award. He has a BA, MS, and MBA from Harvard.
Ninis Samuel, Advisor
Ninis Samuel has 20 years’ experience at top tech companies building brands, launching new technology products, driving strategic partnerships, and leading e-commerce and product teams worldwide.
He was most recently Vice President of Consumer Product Marketing & Innovation at T-Mobile, where he reported directly to the CMO of the Consumer Group. Previously he was CMO & Digital Officer at SteelSeries, a top gaming and esports brand. He’s also led consumer marketing and strategy for companies including Lenovo and Microsoft.
Craig Kornblau, Advisor
Craig Kornblau built his media career at NBC Universal and Disney, where he spearheaded projects around transformative technology and delivery, and is now principal of a strategic consulting firm.
Craig was President of Universal Studios Home Entertainment for 15 years, where he oversaw sales, marketing, distribution, and finance for Universal’s North American home entertainment operations. A critical function of this position was his participation on the studio’s theatrical greenlight committee. Prior to Universal, Craig was an executive at Buena Vista Home Video, now Walt Disney Home Entertainment. He is GV’s (formerly known as Google Ventures) first advisor from the media and entertainment sector, and he serves on the board of directors of a variety of companies in the media and tech space.
He has a broad network of consumer and retail partners including Amazon, Apple, Best Buy, Comcast, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Target and Walmart. Craig has previously held board positions with the Consumer Electronics Association, Digital Entertainment Group, Media Audits International, and Next Level Communications. Craig earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Southern California, Marshall School of Business.
Jake Hawley, Advisor
Jacob Hawley was previously, for 7 years, Worldwide Director of Technology for 2K Publishing at Take-Two Interactive, one of the world’s top 10 videogame companies. There he had P&L responsibility for $40M+ annual for core technology and tech roadmap for all of the global development studios. He successfully delivered 21 AAA titles, including Bioshock and Borderlands, which generated over $5B in revenue.
He was also Senior Director of Technology and Business Development at Intellectual Ventures, where he received multiple President’s Club awards for top sales and licensing revenue, and COO of Blind Squirrel Entertainment, where he delivered 6 of the top 10 Steam Games of 2016. Most recently, he founded and built TLM Partners, a technology outsourcing company whose customers include 2K Games, R* Games, EA, Warner Bros, Skydance, Starbreeze, Nomadic VR, and RedPill VR. He has a BS from MIT.
Dave Lorenzini, Advisor
Dave Lorenzini is a global leader in AR and spatial computing, and on the board that manages Augmented World Expo, the world’s biggest augmented reality conference. He co-created Google Earth as Director of Keyhole.
Previously, at ARc, he led XR product, platform and business strategy work for clients including Google and Facebook. He was an executive in satellite imaging at Maxar, and co-founded Open AR Cloud Association, the leading spatial computing industry effort creating open and interoperable reality based systems. He is also now Director of Visualix (deep AR positioning).
