The British Games Institute has expanded its board of advisors with 20 new members from across the industry.
The national games agency, led by Rick Gibson and Iain Livingstone, aims to secure public and private funding for the games industry to fuel growth, as well as promote diversity and inclusion across the sector.
In February the organisation merged with the National Videogame Foundation.
Big names
To help support and govern its initiatives, it’s brought in an array of board members, as you can see below. The BGI noted it aims to reach a 50/50 gender balance and appropriate BAME representation on the board by summer 2018.
- Shahid Ahmad (Ultimatum Games)
- Samira Ahmed (BBC)
- Katherine Bidwell (State of Play)
- Carl Cavers (Sumo Digital PLC)
- Marcia Deakin (NextGen Skills Academy)
- Iain Dodgeon (Wellcome Trust)
- Paul Gardner (Wiggin)
- Katie Goode (Triangular Pixels)
- Ian Hetherington (Midoki/Wrld)
- Marie-Claire Isaaman (Women in Games)
- Tanya Laird (Digital Jam)
- Andy Payne (Appynation / Just Flight / British eSports Association)
- Jason Kingsley (Rebellion)
- Chris Kingsley (Rebellion)
- Philip Oliver (Rebellion)
- Timea Tabori (Rockstar North)
- Paul Kilduff-Taylor (Mode7)
- Mark Turpin (Yogscast)
- Chris White (former Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Games)
- Richard Wilson (TIGA)
The BGI has also called on other people in the UK games industry to join its new “steering groups” for its finance, culture, skills and diversity programmes.
Those interested can apply here.
“By appointing such a wide range of diverse stakeholders from right across the sector to our board and by announcing our goal of achieving an even gender split and good BAME representation in the near future, we’re making a strong statement about the BGI as an organisation, but also our vision for a more diverse sector in future,” said BGI CEO Rick Gibson.
“We are building diversity and inclusion into everything we do and our advisory board will be ensuring that diversity and inclusion remain a focus for all our programmes. With a range of new programmes coming, we need the sector’s help to ensure that what the BGI delivers is fit for purpose for our sector, so we are inviting people to register their interest in joining steering groups to govern the BGI’s programmes.”
