Rise and Play Podcast

Join us for a special and meta episode on... how to make podcasts! Have you ever considered starting your own podcast, and why should you consider a podcast to create content? That's what we are deconstructing with Lauren Kaye, the founder and host of the podcast She Plays Games. I was so happy to connect with another female podcaster in games, as we are very rare! Learn what you should consider before you create content (on youtube, on a podcast, or any media platform). Learn about our processes on how we design our content, source our guests, and edit our podcast episodes. Even if you're not planning to have your own podcast, this is still a young and untapped media platform you can experiment with! SHE PLAYS GAMES is a podcast dedicated to celebrating women who work in the games industry. We want to make the various roles in games visible to anyone looking to join the games industry whether through programming, QA, producing, streaming, content creation, and so on.Thank you to our sponsors. Game Refinery: https://info.gamerefinery.com/riseandplay to get a free product tour. Build better games + live events with leaner teams. Appodeal: https://appodeal.com join the all-in-one growth platform for mobile app creators of any size.Don't forget to subscribe to Rise and Play: https://www.riseandplay.io This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit riseandplay.substack.com

Marko Kecman was my ex Studio co-Lead at Voodoo. During our collaboration time at Voodoo, we spent long hours of thoughtful conversations to rethink how we could make our 1:1s meetings meaningful and impactful. It started with a simple question: What are the 1:1s for? Is it for us (as a manager), or for the people to grow? The format highly depends on what the goal is. We are sharing in this episode actionables on how to run your 1:1s when the primary goal is to develop your people: how to develop their self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and reflection skills? how to grow your future leaders? We will share the coaching tools we learned from being coached and trained (active listening skills, mirroring, the 3 levels of listening...).Marko is an experienced Product & Project Manager with about 20 years of professional experience. His career started as a full-stack web developer where he quickly grew to become a Tech Lead, having to manage teams of developers.Thank you to our sponsors. Game Refinery: https://info.gamerefinery.com/riseandplay to get a free product tour. Build better games + live events with leaner teams. Appodeal: https://appodeal.com join the all-in-one growth platform for mobile app creators of any size.Don't forget to subscribe to Rise and Play: https://www.riseandplay.io This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit riseandplay.substack.com

Julia Palatovska is the co-founder and CEO of Dorian, a new creator platform that enables anyone to turn fiction into games and make money out of them! With Dorian, Julia's team is democratizing how digital stories are created (no-code platform), empowering storytellers from all around the world to tell the stories that deserve to be told. Julia shares her journey as an entrepreneur, from Ukraine to the Silicon Valley, leveraging her prior experience as a venture partner at LVP. Julia also gives advice on how to fundraise and pitch, who to hire for an early-stage startup, and why it is important to have more female-founded companies make an exit to bridge the gap in the number of VC funds led by women as well. Thank you to our sponsors. Game Refinery: https://info.gamerefinery.com/riseandplay to get a free product tour. Build better games + live events with leaner teams. Appodeal: https://appodeal.com join the all-in-one growth platform for mobile app creators of any size.Don't forget to subscribe to Rise and Play: https://www.riseandplay.ioRead more about Dorian at: https://home.dorian.live/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit riseandplay.substack.com

Lauren Clinnick is the CEO and co-founder at Lumi Interactive, an Australian, female-founded mobile game studio focused on games that make the world a kinder place. With a focus on social connection and well-being, their latest plant-focused title Kinder World is in development for iOS and Android for a global release in late 2022. Lauren shares her journey, failures, and learning building the game company. She shares how she approaches game development as a marketer exploring platforms like Tik Tok, leveraging the community of the game, getting a deep understanding of the audience, and understanding subculture trends. She shares their fundraising journey, their hurdles as a fully female-founded team, and how they iterated their pitch to finally find the best partner to support their mission and purpose. Thank you to our sponsors. Game Refinery: https://info.gamerefinery.com/riseandplay to get a free product tour. Build better games + live events with leaner teams. Appodeal: https://appodeal.com join the all-in-one growth platform for mobile app creators of any size.Don't forget to subscribe to Rise and Play: https://www.riseandplay.ioRead more about Kinder World and open positions at Lumi Interactive: https://jobs.polymer.co/lumiinteractive This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit riseandplay.substack.com

Who hasn't played The Sims when they were young? The Sims has been part of our lives over the past 20 years and has evolved with our times as we evolved as a society. Join my conversation with Catharina Lavers-Mallet, VP/GM of The Sims & Maxis at EA. We talk about team culture, distributed teams at scale, and the evolution of The Sims franchise. Prior to EA, Catharina also acted as General Manager and Head of Studio at King. She built and scaled their London games studios and played a key operational and product leadership role in the growth of the company.Thank you to our sponsors. Game Refinery: https://info.gamerefinery.com/riseandplay to get a free product tour. Build better games + live events with leaner teams. Appodeal: https://appodeal.com join the all-in-one growth platform for mobile app creators of any size.Don't forget to subscribe to Rise and Play: https://www.riseandplay.io This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit riseandplay.substack.com

This is our first episode format with 2 guests, addressing the misunderstood and unspoken topics of motherhood and leadership. Betty and Emily share their personal journey as former Executives in big companies (Google, EA, Glu mobile), and what led them to build their own businesses once they became mothers. You will get insights into what is really happening when your employee goes through the experience of parenting, especially as a mother, and why many workplaces today are not adequate anymore for mothers who want to keep growing in their careers. How could we design a better work environment to support parents and mothers to keep thriving? The change starts with more awareness, education, and appropriate reintegration programs for parents. Thank you to our sponsors. Game Refinery: https://info.gamerefinery.com/riseandplay to get a free product tour. Build better games + live events with leaner teams. Appodeal: https://appodeal.com join the all-in-one growth platform for mobile app creators of any size.Don't forget to subscribe to Rise and Play: https://www.riseandplay.ioAbout our guests: Betty Lapeyre is a certified Integral Development Coach, who supports people live their lives truthfully and fully. You can book a coaching session with Betty here: https://www.bloomingwithbetty.com/Emily Yim has over 13 years of experience in mobile games and held several product management leadership roles at companies such as EA, Glu, Dots, and Zynga. Emily gained her mobile gaming expertise in casual and lifestyle genres while working on successful franchises such as Covet Fashion, The Sims Mobile, Two Dots, and SongPop, and has led teams of various sizes. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit riseandplay.substack.com

Vanessa Rouhani hasn't started her career in games or business. Still, she climbed the career ladders step-by-step thanks to her curiosity, and constant drive to learn and grow, which led her to become the SVP of Publishing and Product Marketing at Jam City. Vanessa shares how she is leading her marketing team at Jam City, focusing on people first while driving results. She also shares openly her vision of an inclusive workplace where mothers in executive roles can professionally thrive while keeping clear personal boundaries. Vanessa advocates how it is important to prioritize your personal life while having ambition for your career. Those are not mutually exclusive.  Prior to joining Jam City, Vanessa served on the Mobile Publishing team at global video game publisher, Electronic Arts. She contributed to the successful launch of highly-rated original and licensed games, such as Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes, The Simpsons Tapped Out, FIFA.Thank you to our sponsors. Game Refinery: https://info.gamerefinery.com/riseandplay to get a free product tour. Build better games + live events with leaner teams. Appodeal: https://appodeal.com join the all-in-one growth platform for mobile app creators of any size.Don't forget to subscribe to Rise and Play: https://www.riseandplay.io This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit riseandplay.substack.com

Julie Beaugrand, former VP North Americas Studios at Gameloft and Head of Studio of Toronto, shares her journey building a new game studio at Rovio on a mission to crack the next casual hit game. From her 6 years running a successful large studio in Toronto, operating the hit game Disney Magic Kingdom, she took those learnings to build her new dream team. Take away from this episode how to start your new studio when you are embedded in a company, who to hire as new talents, who to bring with you from previous teams, how to build your network of mentors, and how to approach the current casual market. Thank you to our sponsors. Game Refinery: https://info.gamerefinery.com/riseandplay to get a free product tour. Build better games + live events with leaner teams. Appodeal: https://appodeal.com join the all-in-one growth platform for mobile app creators of any size.Don't forget to subscribe to Rise and Play: https://www.riseandplay.ioCheck the open positions in Rovio Toronto. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit riseandplay.substack.com

Take away from this episode how to think differently about money as an instrument to fulfill your life vision. Do you work for money or is money working for you?I am debunking the key misconceptions about money and personal finances with Marcela Barrera, the founder of Investors Abroad and financial coach. Are you diversifying your portfolio of assets? Have you started to invest? Do you know the difference between a liability and an asset? Why is there a knowledge gap in finances for women, and what can we do about it? That's what we will bring to you in this episode.Thank you to our sponsors. Game Refinery: https://info.gamerefinery.com/riseandplay to get a free product tour. Build better games + live events with leaner teams. Appodeal: https://appodeal.com join the all-in-one growth platform for mobile app creators of any size.Don't forget to subscribe to Rise and Play: https://www.riseandplay.ioJoin and follow Afrogameuses: https://www.afrogameuses.com/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit riseandplay.substack.com

Hear Jennifer Lufau's insights on how you can effectively repair racial inequality in your organization, and be part of the change too.Jennifer shares her journey as a young player, not finding representation of herself in games, and what motivated her to later fund the non-profit organization Afrogameuses. Jennifer experienced racism playing online games. She could have remained a silent victim among many others. Instead, she decided to fight against racism and sexism in games and build a supportive community for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People Of Color) who stream, play, and make games. Additionally, Jennifer works as a social media and content manager at Ubisoft.Thank you to our sponsors. Game Refinery: https://info.gamerefinery.com/riseandplay to get a free product tour. Build better games + live events with leaner teams. Appodeal: https://appodeal.com join the all-in-one growth platform for mobile app creators of any size.Don't forget to subscribe to Rise and Play: https://www.riseandplay.ioJoin and follow Afrogameuses: https://www.afrogameuses.com/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit riseandplay.substack.com