British Games Institute announces 20 new board members
Organisation calls for the games industry to help govern its programmes
A Conservative member of parliament, a BBC journalist, and several game company CEOs are among the newly appointed board members of the British Games Institute.
The BGI announced its intention to reach a 50/50 gender balance with "appropriate" black and ethnic minority representation on the board by Summer 2018.
Despite failing to receive allocation in the Autumn Budget last year, the organisation was formalised in February after merging with the National Video Games Foundation.
The BGI is now calling on people from across the industry to put themselves forward for positions on steering groups for the BGI's programmes.
Focused on skills, finance, culture, and diversity, the steering groups will open up to new members this Summer. The BGI is encouraging a wide range of stakeholders from across the sector to apply.
"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 Rick Gibson, CEO of the BGI.
"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.
The full list of new appointees is as follows:
- Shahid Ahmad - Ultimatum Games
- Samira Ahmed - BBC
- Katherine Bidwell - State of Play
- Carl Cavers - Sumo Digital
- 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 and Chris Kingsley, and 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