Mobile Panel: Mobile Gaming

Sponsored By:

Rob Go - Moderator

Partner and Co-founder, NextView Ventures

Rob is the cofounder of NextView Ventures, a seed stage investment firm focused on internet enabled innovation. He tries to spend as much time as possible working with young entrepreneurs and investing in businesses that are trying to solve important problems for everyday people.

Rob was previously a venture capitalist at Spark Capital, a leading venture firm focused on the intersection of media, technology, and entertainment. He helped to launch and coordinate Start@Spark, a seed stage investment program targeted at early-stage companies in the New York and Boston areas.

Before joining Spark Capital, Rob worked at Ebay, as the North America Business Unit owner for “Finding”. In this role, he helped launch over 20 products that significantly enhanced Ebay’s search, browse, and merchandising capabilities.

Previously, Rob was a Senior Associate at The Parthenon Group, a boutique strategy consulting firm. He was a member of the firm’s Private Equity practice, and focused on the consumer and retail industries. Additionally, Rob also held product management roles at Fidelity Investments, BzzAgent, and helped to found Letslink.jp, one of the first social networking sites outside of the United States.

Harlan Crystal - Panelist

CTO & Co-Founder, Pocket Gems

Harlan Crystal is the co-founder and CTO of Pocket Gems, a Sequoia backed mobile gaming company.  In little over two years Harlan led development at Pocket Gems while the company grew from two engineers with full-time commitments to being a recognized leader in the mobile gaming space, with 80 employee, 8 games and over 50 million downloads.

Prior to Pocket Gems, Harlan was the VP of Engineering at Smartleaf.  He has hacked for early stage startups in computer vision, compilers, embedded-realtime, bioinformatics and financial software. 

Harlan has a BA in Computer Science from Cornell University and dropped out of grad school, also at Cornell.  

Jennifer Lu - Panelist

Director, Business Development, TinyCo

Jennifer heads business development and marketing for TinyCo, a leading mobile gaming company based in San Francisco.  In February 2011, TinyCo raised $18 million in Series A funding led by Andreessen Horowitz, and within a year TinyCo launched five top grossing iOS titles including Tiny Zoo Friends and Tiny Pets. Jennifer also runs the TinyFund, a $5 million fund to help promising mobile game developers bring hits to market.

Prior to TinyCo, Jennifer managed Developer Relations at OpenFeint (the largest mobile social gaming network on iOS and Android) who was acquired by GREE International in April 2011.  She graduated from UC Berkeley with a B.S. in Bioengineering.

Justin Cinicolo - Panelist

General Manager, Zynga Inc.

Justin Cinicolo is General Manager for Mobile at Zynga Inc. Based in San Francisco, he is responsible for overseeing Zynga Poker Mobile and CityVille Hometown including the creation and development of new game features and ensuring the team delivers the best playing experience possible for its players.

Before joining Zynga, Justin was a toy designer, virtual world builder, and creator of the Game Innovation Database project. His work has been on display at the Montreal International Game Summit, Game Developers Conference, and Walt Disney World.

Justin graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a Master’s in Entertainment Technology and a dual Bachelors degree in Human Computer Interaction and Information Systems. A native of Dubois, Pennsylvania, Justin’s passion for games began as child and he continues to have a deep appreciation for games and the social experiences they enable to people to have with others. 

Samir El Agili - Panelist

 Vice President of Production for US and South America Gameloft, Inc.

As the General Studio Manager for US and South America, Samir El Agili oversees the management of Gameloft’s studios in both the American and Latin American markets while maintaining responsibility for a production staff of over 800 employees.

Prior to joining Gameloft, Samir worked as a project manager for Schneider, a global specialist in energy management, where he helped to save over 15 Million euros for the company by optimizing the efficiency of the France sales team consisting of over 580 employees.

At the early age of eighteen, Samir was named co-founder and technical director of PC STAR, a company that custom built, designed and sold personal computer based on customer needs.

Samir holds a Masters in Management with a focus on marketing from the HEC School of Management, in addition to a BS in Aerospace Engineering with a focus on Aerodynamics from Queen Mary, University of London.

In 2001 Samir was also awarded with the Royal Aeronautical Society Prize, a prestigious award granted annually to the best aeronautical engineering graduate of the academic year.

Chris Gibbs - Panelist

Executive Producer, Electronic Arts

Chris heads EA Mobile’s EU studios and has been at the forefront of the company’s development of high profile games for the Nokia N-Gage platform, the iPhone, and the iPad. For 8 years, Chris has collaborated across multiple internal EA teams to take the gameplay within core franchises and transform them for mobile games. His work has included EA Sports FIFA 09, Spore Origins, Need for Speed Undercover, Tiger Woods PGA, and The Sims 3.