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Lisa Opie, managing director at Ubisoft Reflections and Ubisoft Leamington, has been announced as the latest keynote speaker for this year’s Develop:Brighton.
Opie’s keynote, titled ‘Building a Creative Culture, Together,’ will reflect on her time at Ubisoft, and the importance of building an inclusive studio culture where every perspective is valued.
The session will include practical tips around:
- Creating a culture of belonging
- Building an award-winning wellbeing initiative
- Empowering teams to drive their own initiatives
- Revamping recruitment to appeal to a broad talent pool
- Increasing transparency in studio leadership
“I am thrilled to be delivering a keynote at this year’s Develop:Brighton,” said Lisa. “I’ll be talking about my first year as Managing Director of Ubisoft’s two HD studios in the UK, sharing some of the things I’ve learnt, highlighting some of the initiatives we’ve put in place to make sure our studios are as inclusive and creative as they can be, and reflecting on some of the things I think we can learn from other creative industries.
“I hope people will take away practical and actionable tips alongside some fresh ideas.”
Opie will be joined by fellow headline keynote speakers, such as the creative leads from Arkane Lyon, led by studio director and co-creative director Dinga Bakaba who will be discussing the development process of their award-winning title Deathloop. Bakaba will be joined by campaign director Dana Nightingale, assistant art director Jean-Luc Monnet, and gameplay programmer Francesco Venco.
Additionally, over 40 speakers have been announced across eight conference tracks, including newly announced sessions from Google, Mediatonic and TT Games, as well as from games industry icon Rami Ismail.
The newly-announced Develop:Brighton sessions are listed below, with the full list available on the event’s website:
- Developing Technical Skills to Increase Your Creativity (Art) – Ruthie Nielsen, TT Games
- The Future of Fashion in Games (Art) – Cait Goodale, DREST
- From Concept to Launch: A Data-driven Approach to Success (Business) – Tyler Long, Newzoo
- Pulling Together a Business Case (Business) – Rami Ismail, Indie Developer
- Across the Board on Apple Arcade: Putting DOTS Through its Paces (Coding) – Matthew Rubin, AlphaBlit
- How We Brought a Large C++ AI Codebase to C# and Unity (Coding) – Fabio Anderegg, Kythera AI
- AI Supported Tools for Game Development (Coding) – Gorm Lai, Goldsmiths
- Is Your Code Working For You (Coding) – Nikky Armstrong, Silver Rain Games
- Designing “DEATHLOOP”s First Hours at the Eleventh Hour (Design) – Dana Nightingale, Arkane Lyon
- Design Sensibilities for a Collaborative Culture (Design) – Jamie Smith, Sumo Digital
- Running Featured Cross-publisher Events on Steam (Discoverability) – Gary Burchell, Fireblade Software
- Creative Alchemy – Transmuting Your Game’s Vision into Marketing Gold (Discoverability) – Dessil Basmadjian, Focus Entertainment
- Forging Meaningful Connections With Audiences Through Marketing (Discoverability) – Justine Colla, Atomhawk
- Downward Spiral or Mega Viral: 10 Lessons From a Year on TikTok (Discoverability) – Grace Curtis, Future Friends Games
- Why Deep Community-Driven Engagement is the Key to Turning Your Fans into Your Advocates (IBC) – Brendan Malcom, Games By Malcs
- Launching a Sequel on Mobile Games (Mobile) – Fernando Pernica, Google
- ADHD City – Weird Things That Help for the Creative (but noisy) Brain (Roundtables) – Anna Hollinrake, Mediatonic
- Exploring Ways to Create and Foster Positive Mental Health Awareness in Your Workplace (Roundtables) – Rosie Taylor, Safe In Our World
Develop:Brighton will take place from at the Hilton Brighton Metropole from Tuesday 12th to Thursday 14th July 2022.
MCV/DEVELOP readers can get a 10 per cent discount on their tickets with the code NWQPAH. Those who want an even bigger discount should hurry, as the Super Early Bird rate, which provides an additional 30 per cent off, ends on the 6th of April.
