SHANNON LOFTIS
General Manager, Studios 1st Publishing, Xbox

Shannon Loftis is General Manager for Studios 1st Publishing on Team Xbox. Shannon has been with Microsoft since 1993, making games for the vast majority of that time.

Shannon studied computer science and mathematics at Duke University. She joined Microsoft in 1993 and quickly migrated to the Entertainment Product Unit. Her earliest work focused on the creation of online card-playing games, utilizing the emerging consumer potential of the internet and social game design. Shannon has been responsible for multiplayer games across all of Microsoft’s gaming platforms (console, PC and Hololens), including the Madness series (Motocross Madness, Monster Truck Madness, and Midtown Madness), Project Gotham Racing, the Fable series, the Viva Pinata series, Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts, and many others. In total, Shannon has contributed to more than 50 games.

Shannon has created and led many global teams in the US and UK, including games publishing teams, interactive television teams, and internal game development studios (most notably Good Science, the team responsible for greenlighting and shipping the Kinect with full-motion games and core in 2010). Currently the Studios Global Publishing team is focused on such AAA franchises as Quantum Break, Ori and the Blind Forest, and the Microsoft Casual Suite.
In her free time, Shannon enjoys playing video games, running, and traveling with her husband and two sons.

JOEL BRETON
Vice President of VR Content, HTC Vive

Joel is Vice President of VR Content and Head of Vive Studios at HTC Vive. He and his team are working with worldwide content creators to develop a rich portfolio across all categories of VR, including games, education, cinematic, live-events, v-sports, music, shopping, and entertainment. Joel has produced more than twenty platinum-selling videogames in his career, and he has launched games on thirty commercial platforms from the Sega Genesis to HTC Vive. After beginning his career at Sega of America, his first role as a game producer was for GT interactive, where he produced Doom, Duke Nukem, Unreal, and the first version of the Unreal game engine. He then moved to Bethesda Softworks, where he launched a string of successful AAA games including Sea Dogs, Burnout, and Pirates of the Caribbean. Joel also spent 4 years at MTV Networks, where he served as Director of Content and worked with developers around the world to launch blockbuster online, mobile, and console games.

CHRISTIAN COCKS
President, Wizards of the Coast

Christian Cocks is the President of Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro offering games and entertainment under world-renowned brands such as Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons. Before joining Wizards, Christian most recently served as Vice President, OEM Technical Sales at Microsoft Corporation, where he led a global sales and technical engagement team. Prior to his eight-year tenure with Microsoft, Christian served as Vice President of Educational Games at LeapFrog, where he led a cross-discipline team to drive hardware planning, software design and development, marketing and channel management. He began his career in brand management at Procter & Gamble and served in product management and marketing leadership positions in Xbox and MSN, including work on hit franchises like Halo and Fable.

LEAH HOYER
Vice President of Creative, Telltale Games

Leah Hoyer is passionate about making story experiences. She recently joined Telltale Games as their Vice President of Creative. Prior to that, she was head of narrative at both ArenaNet (Guild Wars 2) and Xbox Studios. She recently launched ThePlayersStory.com to share insights on creating interactive story, and hopes that it will become a place where folks who love game narrative can learn and share ideas.

JESSE RAPCZAK
Co-Founder & Co-Creative Director, Studio Wildcard

Jesse Rapczak is Co-Founder and Co-Creative Director at Studio Wildcard (Kirkland, WA), the team behind the smash indie hit game ARK: Survival Evolved on PC, Xbox and PlayStation. An innovator-entrepreneur with the discerning eye of an artist and the logical wiring of a programmer, Jesse’s teams excel at rapid prototyping and creative development, allowing for critical path decision-making that turns emergent technology and blue-sky ideas into commercially competitive products.

Prior to his current venture, Jesse was Technical Art Director on Microsoft HoloLens at Xbox and Lead Technical Artist at Sony Online Entertainment, after spending 3 years in India as VP of Production at Exigent, an outsourcing company he co-founded. Jesse’s first entrepreneurial venture, Artificial Studios (which he also co-founded), created Reality Engine, a next-gen game engine that was acquired by Epic Games in 2005. Jesse got his start in Hollywood Visual Effects after graduating from the University of Florida in 2003 (BS: Digital Arts and Sciences).

ONDRAUS JENKINS
Chief Business Officer, Bungie

Ondraus (sometimes referred to around the studio by his nome de guerre “OJ”) is the Chief Business Officer of Bungie. OJ has always been fascinated by the intersection of technology, event-driven pop culture, and business. After a tour of duty with a large Wall Street law firm in New York and Los Angeles, he moved to a talent-side boutique law firm in Beverly Hills. His migration to interactive business came soon after, thanks to an invitation from Electronic Arts. After only a scant few years of providing sound business development counsel on the provision of entertainment software, a fateful conversation with Bungie in 2008 set him on the path to return to the Pacific Northwest. Ondraus has been a Bungie fan since first playing Marathon on his Macintosh in 1994, but he’s all about Destiny these days. He is a graduate of Stanford University, The Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy, and the Columbia University School of Law.

DAVID EDERY
CEO, Spry Fox

David Edery is the CEO of Spry Fox, the studio behind titles such as Triple Town, Alphabear, Bushido Bear Steambirds, Realm of the Mad God and Road Not Taken. Previously, David was worldwide games portfolio manager for Microsoft’s Xbox LIVE service, where he was responsible for content strategy and selecting the games that would be accepted for distribution by the LIVE service. David co-authored, “Changing the Game: How Video Games are Transforming the Future of Business” a book that explores the ways that games can be leveraged by businesses for serious purposes.

KATIE CHIRONIS
Game Designer, Oculus Rex

Katie is a game designer on Oculus Rex, Oculus’s internal game development team. She worked as a designer on Farlands for the Rift, and Prologue for the GearVR. She has extensive experience designing and prototyping for high-comfort VR experiences. Previously, she has worked as a game and narrative designer for companies such as Microsoft, Her Interactive, and Signal Studios.