Meet the voices shaping the future at Womenize!
Our speakers are advocates of diversity, equity, and inclusion, driving meaningful conversations and pushing boundaries in the games industry. Get inspired by their journeys, insights, and expertise as we unite to empower all marginalized voices!
Maxi Graeff is the Marketing Lead for @XboxDACH with +15 years experience in the gaming industry. With her background she brings expertise in Public Relations, Marketing, Brand, Social, Events & Partnerships with strong Storytelling as her core skill.
Maxi also initiated the Xbox Mentoring Program that has been active for multiple years to inspire Wom-en to join the industry.
Sophie Vo is a Game Executive with over 15 years of experience working at Gameloft, Wooga, Rovio, Voodoo, and PlayStation —building studio and people’s departments, guiding teams through change, launching games, and running Live Ops on $300M+ lifetime IPs. Currently CEO and co-founder of a new AAA game studio in Vietnam, Kylan.
In 2021, she founded Rise and Play: a network and knowledge-sharing platform for the conscious leaders of the gaming industry who advocate for a human-centric approach to game development and teams.
Melanie Fussenegger studied media technology and media art with a focus on computer graphics and digital games. She has found her calling in project management and project leadership and has been working in this role at the Digital Games Culture Foundation since 2022. There she set up the “Start-up: Games Entrepreneurs” program funded by Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, which supports founders of indie studios in Berlin and Brandenburg with workshops, mentoring and networking. Her passion for digital games as a form of art and expression motivates her to actively shape the future of this medium.
Mafalda Duarte is the Studio director and producer at Telescope Game Studios, a multicultural Potsdam-based team, bringing the game Last Whale Singer: Rise of the Leviathan to life.In her previous director/producer role at Nerd Monkeys, she helped launch titles like Out of Line and Short Games Collection into the world.She is not only an ambassador for Women in Games but also works for the organisation as the Ambassador Coordinator, speaks in events around the world and mentors She’s a founder of the Game Dev Lisbon collective and has been organising events such as Game Dev Camp since 2020, among other community projects.
Gabrielė Jurkonytė is a marketing manager at InnoGames with over 5 years of experience in Conversion Rate Optimization. Alongside her professional role, she is a certified Mindfulness teacher and holds a master’s degree in Psychology.
Juggling the challenges of modern life Gabrielė is bringing mindfulness into daily business prioritizing not only productivity but also holistic well-being, with a particular focus on the body. She believes that the true measure of success lies in ending a busy workday with sufficient nervous system capacity remaining for pleasure, creativity, and play.
Caroline Schneiders is a facilities and workplace experience specialist with 7 years of expertise as part of a global gaming company.Caroline started her journey at Riot Games in player management and therefore has a background in advocating for professionals, organizing events, creating inclusive environments and collaborating with colleagues of all levels of seniority. Nowadays, she’s focused on ensuring a high quality of Workplace Experiences across four of their sites in the EMEA+ region and is responsible for their continued service and operational growth whilst designing and maintaining internal workplace processes and systems.
Her team’s mission is to make Riot workspaces the best place to make games.
Kristina Strassburger is a criminologist with a mission: to prevent sexualized violence in two crucial areas: among children and in the workplace. As an expert with a scientific background and practical experience in a counseling center for victims of sexualized violence and the economy, she offers tailor-made, helpful training and lectures, both online and offline.Starting from the summer of 2021, she has been actively engaged in valuable educational and prevention work (in German) on instagram, under the handle kriminologin.kristina.
Sofia Saa is Head of the Office for cinema, audiovisual, video games and digital creation at Institut français Deutschland. She is committed to supporting and promoting the visibility of women, particularly in the video game and XR industries. The WOMEN MAKING GAMES program, created in 2023 and set for a second edition in 2024, is one such example.
Almut Schwacke has been roaming the world of interactive sound since 2006. With a Tonmeisterdiploma from the renowned Berlin University of the Arts under her belt, a big collection of Foleyprops and an infinite fascination for auditory subtleties she loves developing sonic identities forvideo games, wearing all the hats from Sound Designer to Foley Artist to Voice Actor toComposer in the process. Her works include Anno 1800, Through the Darkest of Times, YouSuck At Parking, NUTS and Pizza Possum.Audio is truly the greatest playground for her – diverse, interesting and a new challenge each time.
Ina Goering is Director of Membership & Funding at game – Verband der deutschen Games-Branche e.V. and the contact person for all questions relating to games funding and supports the regional representatives of game in their work.During and after her studies at the Film University Babelsberg, Ina worked as a producer, production manager and director in the film, television and animated film industry. She then worked for several years in the media team of the Investitionsbank des Landes Brandenburg (ILB). Most recently, Ina worked as a consultant in the New Media Funding division of Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg. She was responsible for the funding programs “Innovative Audiovisual Content” (funding for games, VR and AR projects) and “Location Measures” (events).
Katja Bäuerle is the CEO of Erich Pommer Institut, a provider of professional training for the German and European media industry, based in Potsdam-Babelsberg. In her more than 20 years in the industry, she also worked as Creative Responsibility Manager at German production powerhouse UFA, ran their employee education and learning scheme and produced several long-running daily dramas and prime-time series in Berlin, Cologne and Melbourne. Female Leadership, diversity in the film industry and green production have long been the focus of her work.
Simge Erdogan is BD & Partnerships Manager for VAL Esports EMEA at Riot Games. Prior to joining Riot Games in 2022, Simge spent over six years in marketing and esports roles in the esports ecosystem. She began her career at ESL Turkey, where after a 3-year tenure, she gained extensive experience in community management, league ops, live broadcast, and project management. Followed by her role as Esports Manager at Red Bull, establishing gaming and esports efforts in Turkey for the brand, creating the global CS:GO event Red Bull Flick which is loved and played by many around the globe. Her next steps at Publishme Agency and SPORTFIVE led her to work with major brands such as Vodafone, Coca-Cola, ASUS, Gillette, HyperX, Intel and publishers Supercell and Activision Blizzard on many marketing and community projects both local and regional.
Julianne Becker is Co-Founder Managing Director of Coconat and initiator of The Rabbit, born in the US lived in Vietnam, lived in Berlin and finally to rural Brandenburg 7 years ago. She is a trained artist, filmmaker, communications expert, creative entrepreneur, & more. She lives the Coconat purpose: Inviting. Inspiring. Inventing sustainable stuff.
Stay tuned! More speakers will be announced soon.
ABOUT THE ORGANIZER
We come from Kreuzberg, Berlin, and develop brands, curate programs and execute them on-site. It’s like thinking with a thousand heads and speaking with a thousand mouths. Online networks, start-ups, developers, politics, media and cultural leaders come and listen. We are experts for Kickstarter. We do love this shit.
Herausgeber:
Booster Space Events & Consulting GmbH
V.i.S.d.P.: Michael Liebe, CEO
Oranienstr. 37
10999 Berlin
Registration: HRB 154151
Amtsgericht Charlottenburg