Speakers 2025
The first wave of speakers for the 10th edition of Reboot Develop Blue 2025 is live! Check out the lineup of incredible speakers we have the honor to host at the 2025 edition of the conference.
Chelsea Blasko
Iron Galaxy Studios
CEO
Chelsea strives to create a welcoming environment where talented people can do their best work. As CEO of Iron Galaxy studios, her innovative leadership has produced a strong values-based culture that nurtures creative excellence as much as the creators. Her personal accomplishments as a developer have equipped her to improve the production methodologies that enable efficient work and quality products. She keeps her teammates on the evolving edge of continuous improvement by investing in the growth of their skills and careers. As a strong believer that diversity builds better teams, Chelsea has guided the formalization of new policies to take uncompromising care of every employee. The result is a company that delivers industry-leading work coexisting in balance with a healthy lifestyle for the people who do it.
Mehdi Benkirane
i3D.net
VP of Business Development
Mehdi’s professional career started in the music industry as a sound engineer which then evolved into film making and video game design development through academia where he oversaw research theses for undergraduate students to eventually represent the educational groups industry relations. After a short stint as an independent consultant for various music and gaming organizations, Mehdi became a video games agent whose mission was to bring in revenue for 12 studios around the world deriving from work for hire, co-development opportunities, as well as publishing and funding of projects. For the past 3.5 years he has been heading gaming business development at i3D.net, a game hosting company part of the Ubisoft group actively working with developers and publishers alike as well as Cloud Gaming companies.
Mike Hendrixen
Vertigo 6 - The Video Game Agency
Founder / Marketing & PR Director
Mike Hendrixen, industry veteran with over 20 years in gaming, founded Vertigo 6 – The Video Game Agency. He’s worked with EA, Bungie, Jagex, Ubisoft, Bandai Namco and was Marketing Director at Codemasters. Renowned for award winning campaigns for FIFA, Farming Simulator and The Sims and for winning the European Excellence Award for Best Agency in Europe.
Patrick Sweeney
Interactive Entertainment Law Group
Attorney
Patrick is one of the longest-tenured Game attorneys in the industry. Starting in the industry in 1999, he has been behind many of the major deals and franchises that drive our business over the last quarter century. He has negotiated approximately 2,500 publishing deals, hundreds of licenses for movies, talent, sports and comic books rights to be made into games as well as innumerable other industry-specific transactions. His firm, the Interactive Entertainment Law Group is a proud supporter of Reboot.
Madalina Niculae
Improbable.io
Lead Producer
Math geek in a previous life, graduated from the University of Mathematics with a degree in Applied Mathematics but realized that Games are a much more interesting field. 14 years of experience in the industry across departments from QA, Product Specialist, Product Owner, Programmer, Project Manager and Producer. I am a problem solver, Jack of all trades, dedicated mother of twins and ultimately Games Producer.
Lukasz Hacura
Anshar Studios
CEO
CEO and Head of Studio at Anshar Studios. Experienced manager leading development teams from a few up to over 100 people. Skilled in Production Management, Programming, Business Development, and Game Design. Passionate “gamedev or die” professional with deep knowledge and understanding of the gaming Industry which he has worked in since 2006.
Jake Birkett
Grey Alien Games
Co-Owner
Veteran Indie developer since 2005. Creator of Regency Solitaire, Ancient Enemy, Shadowhand and more!
Richard Browne
Blue Moon Production Company
Director
Richard began his career in writing games back in 1987 on a BBC Micro. He went on to run internal and external development groups for Domark, Psygnosis, Philips Media, Microprose, Universal Interactive and THQ. More recently he founded and ran the external publishing group of Digital Extremes, growing a 30+ team to develop and publish independent projects including Wayfinder in 2023. He now acts as a consultant to development studios and publishers across the globe.
Tomislav Gojević
Fury Studios
Head of Studio
Tomislav Gojevic is the head of Fury Studios in Zagreb, a subsidiary of Raw Fury, an indie video game publisher based in Sweden. He has over 8 years of experience in the games industry, working on various genres and platforms as a game producer and head of studio. Fury Studios focuses on creating games with passion and personality while maintaining a fine balance between work and personal life. He loves to explore new ideas and challenge conventions in his daily work.
Borislav Slavov
Game Composer
Borislav Slavov is a BAFTA-winning video game composer, best known for his soundtracks for the multiple “Game of the Year” winners “Baldur’s Gate 3”, “Divinity: Original Sin 2” as well as “Crysis 2” and “Crysis 3” where he worked as music director and lead composer. For the past 20 years he’s been specializing in production and implementation of adaptive video game music, which changes and evolves in real-time according to players’ decisions and actions.
Dave Gilbert
Wadjet Eye Games
Founder / CEO
Dave has been interested in adventure games ever since 1986, when his mother made the mistake of buying him a copy of Infocom’s Wishbringer. Fifteen years later, he discovered the Adventure Game Studio engine and began making his own. In 2006, he decided that making games was too much fun to do anything else for a living, and formed Wadjet Eye Games to do just that. In the 19 years since, Wadjet Eye has developed and/or published over 20 games; some of which include the Blackwell series, Unavowed, and The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow.
Ste Curran
Game Designer / Creative Director
Ste Curran is a game designer and creative director from London, England. As well as working on games that he probably can’t talk about right now he hosts the world’s longest-running gaming radio show, One Life Left, and runs Maraoke, a night of pop songs rewritten about videogames. His monologues about game design and culture have been variously described as “life-changing” and “an hour of nothing”. He is also well known as eloquent, humorous and entertaining part of opening and closing ceremonies of Reboot Develop that way being a perfect counterweight for overly emotional Damir, head of Reboot team.
Fawzi Mesmar
Ubisoft
Vice President, Global Creative
Fawzi Mesmar is an award-winning Game designer, leader, author, and public speaker who has been in the gaming industry for over two decades in a career that spanned the Middle East, New Zealand, Japan, and Europe working for companies such as Ubisoft, EA, Activision Blizzard, Gameloft and Atlus to name a few. He has worked on over 20 titles that have been enjoyed by millions of players worldwide including entries in franchises like Star Wars, Mario, Battlefield, Persona and Others. He is also the author of “Al-Khallab in the art of game design” the first Arabic language textbook on game design and 3rd guy on the Habibis podcast.
Callum Underwood
Uwu Biz / IndieBI
Founder
Callum is a Co-Founder of IndieBI, CEO of Uwu Biz, and advisor to Netease and Kepler Interactive. Callum sold his last company, Robot Teddy, to Thunderful, after running the company for multiple years. Robot Teddy managed business related matters for Among Us, SUPERHOT, Gang Beasts, Vampire Survivors and more. Callum has experience in acquisitions, publishing, starting games companies, long-tail title management, and self publishing. Previously, Callum worked as a Scout for Raw Fury, Kowloon Nights, and Oculus. Alongside his current businesses, he is also an occasional angel investor.
Noirin Carmody
Revolution Software
Co-Founder / COO
Noirin Carmody founder and COO at Revolution Software is responsible for strategic business affairs. Noirin is the Executive Producer of Revolution’s games including the Broken Sword Series and Beneath a Steel Sky Series. She was voted one of the top UK 100 women in Games in 2013. Noirin is an elected board member of the UK Interactive Entertainment Games Association (Ukie) and is a voting member of BAFTA. She also holds a number of pro bono appointments.
Luka Čolić
Law firm Čolić Dorotić Ltd.
Attorney
Luka is a founding partner at COLIC DOROTIC, a Croatian law firm focusing on creative and digital industries.
Over the last twelve years, he has advised clients from a myriad of industries in some of the largest corporate and M&A transactions in the region. Luka’s special interest is legal design, which is an effort to apply psychology, technology and design to create more humancentric legal stuff.
Luka always appreciates a good meal and occasionally appreciates a good DJ set.
Xalavier Nelson Jr.
Strange Scaffold
Studio Head
Xalavier Nelson Jr. is a BAFTA-nominated studio head, narrative director, writer, and Forbes 30 under 30 luminary, with dozens of titles under his belt including Stranger Things VR, Magic: The Gathering, Hypnospace Outlaw, Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator, and El Paso, Elsewhere. He also makes strides in a storytelling career outside of games, with releases such as the cult hit comic Sherlock Holmes Hunts the Moth Man
Jonas Antonsson
Raw Fury
Reality Distortionist
Founder of Raw Fury, industry old timer, mother of dragons, father of children, amateur hot air machine, lover of potatoes and a little tea pot. Okay. That last thing isn’t true.
Charles Cecil
Revolution Software
Founder / CEO
Charles Cecil, awarded ‘Industry Legend’ status by Develop, has been a key figure in video games development for 40 years. In 1990 he founded Revolution, today one of the world’s leading adventure game companies which created the Broken Sword and Beyond/Beneath a Steel Sky series. Charles has additionally designed titles as diverse as The Da Vinci Code for Sony Pictures and Doctor Who for the BBC for which he won a BAFTA award. In 2011 Charles was awarded an MBE for services to the computer games industry, and in 2019 was awarded an honorary Doctorate by the University of York.
Patrice Désilets
Panache Digital Games
President and Creative Director
Patrice now cumulates 25 years in the games industry and has been recognized over the years for his audacity and thinking outside the box. With a background in theater, improvisation and cinema, he gets his creative inspiration in all sorts of art forms as well as in history. Most known for his work on Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and as the original creative director behind the global success franchise Assassin’s Creed, Patrice decided to found his own studio in 2014 in order to have complete creative freedom and create new and original IPs such as Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey.
Rami Ismail
Indie Games Developer / Industry Ambassador
Rami Ismail is a Dutch-Egyptian industry ambassador & independent games developer with over 20 titles across PC, console, web, and mobile. His development of tools like the industry-standard dopresskit.com, his prolific & popular public speaking, and highly-regarded consultancy and insights have helped shape industry opportunities for game communities & independent game developers of any kind, in any situation, and anywhere.
Luka Dorotić
Law firm Čolić Dorotić Ltd.
Attorney
Luka is a partner at COLIC DOROTIC, a Zagreb based law firm that focuses on technology and IT industry.
With over a decade of expertise, Luka has been advising clients in the areas of corporate and commercial law, contributing to some of the most prominent transactions in the region.
Excited to discuss the legal side of gaming at the upcoming conference – let’s make law and tech the ultimate power couple!
Pavol Buday
PixelAnt Games
Business Development Manager
After more than a decade playing games and spending way too much time reviewing them, Pavol started paying attention to individuals and teams helping them to connect and finding the correct audience and partners by organising meet-ups, public events and conferences in Slovakia, Czech Republic, Croatia and Canada (Reboot Develop, Fest Anca and Game Days to name a few). Pavol co-founded Slovak Game Developers Association, was instrumental in setting up a public fund in Slovakia, is creator and curator for Game Conference Guide, your events calendar and currently he is developing business at PixelAnt Games a Sumo Digital Studio. During Reboot he is going to host painting mini figures evening.
Kate Edwards
Geogrify / SetJetters
CEO / Co-Founder
Kate Edwards is the CEO and principal consultant of Geogrify, a consultancy which innovated content culturalization, as well as the CXO and Co-Founder of SetJetters, an app focused on connecting tourist to global filming locations. She is also the former Executive Director of the IGDA from 2012 to 2017 and the Global Game Jam from 2019 to 2022. In addition to serving in several board and advisory roles, she is a geographer, writer, and corporate strategist. Following 13 years at Microsoft, she has consulted for EA/BioWare, Google, Amazon, Facebook, LEGO, Ubisoft, and many other companies. As an award-winning 29+ year veteran of the game industry, in 2021 she was included in the Forbes’ “50 Over 50” Vision List as one of 50 veteran women selected from a wide variety of industries, and in the same year was inducted into the Women in Games Hall of Fame.
Martijn van Zwieten
Videogame Business Consultant
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Martijn is an independent game business coach and consultant. He has helped over 60 CEOs, founders and leaders to build better game companies, and to lead them with more confidence and less hassle. After 14+ years in the games industry, he’s seen what works and what doesn’t, and knows exactly what it takes to run and grow a game company. His talks may or may not include Pokemon.
Damir Durovic
Reboot
CEO
Through 25 years of combined experience in running huge games industry events, games media and working within marketing/PR in the industry Damir has seen empires rise and fall, and through all those years has finally grown an awesome beard. For last 11 years together with an incredible and small but super agile team has been running REBOOT brand consisting of both media and events sub-labels, featuring among others one of the biggest consumer game shows in Europe while also throughout a full decade of its existence building the world famous Reboot Develop Blue and Red, two games industry conferences that have redefined the worldwide games industry event landscape while conceptualizing the true meaning of the boutique games industry conferences. Damir also has vast experience in consulting on both marketing and PR matters within the industry as well as taking part in various M&A efforts worldwide. He is an avid extreme hiking challenges fanatic.