Meet 100 of the most influential women working in the UK games industry

From programmers to studio heads, meet some of the most creative women in Britain | Sponsored by Amiqus

Feature by GamesIndustry.biz Staff Contributor

Published on April 5, 2019

A message from our sponsor

We are delighted to be supporting the Gamesindustry.biz 100 Women in Games event. As the people behind the 'Putting The G Into Gaming' initiative, we are incredibly passionate about promoting and encouraging diversity within the games industry. And what better way to do that than to celebrate the outstanding female talent that we already boast in games?

We know that women like to look around them and see the role models out there who inspire them. The role models who are showing young women coming into this industry - or, more importantly, looking in - that the games industry is a welcoming place for female talent. That they can forge incredible careers here, and that they can be the role models of the future.

We all recognise that there is still much to be done in terms of addressing gender diversity within games - that's why initiatives like G Into Gaming are important, along with events like this.

Undoubtedly, there are many, many very talented women in games who are not just inspirational but who are actively supporting each other. The warmth and responses on social media when Gamesindustry.biz revealed the nominees demonstrated just that.

The 100 women being toasted are all inspirational but when we heard about the unprecedented level of nominations received we decided to find a way to make sure that everyone nominated could be celebrated and meet each other! There are so many more brilliant women in the industry who deserve to be recognised. Whether or not you're in the 100, you're all amazing women and I raise my glass to you all and I can't wait to see you at the event.

Liz Prince, Business Manager, Amiqus

Some of us on the GamesIndustry.biz team put together a list of 100 influential women in the UK games industry back in 2014.

It was a good list, full of brilliant creative minds, genius programmers, clever marketers and popular journalists. But there was a clear 100 winners. There were not many people who didn't make the list who people were surprised by. There were no complaints.

What a difference half a decade makes. We had over 500 emails nominating more than 450 women for this year's GamesIndustry.biz 100. The nominees were so strong that - thanks to our sponsor Amiqus - we were able to invite every single one to our special celebratory party at EGX Rezzed.

However, there was no clear 100. When it came to the judging, over 300 of the nominees received at least one vote. Just a solitary vote separated about 40 women from making the final cut. It was that close. It means that although we are comfortable saying this is a list of influential women working in the UK games industry, we definitely couldn't call it definitive.

Indeed, to ensure the editorial credibility of the project, we didn't allow anybody who worked on the GI 100 to be listed. So there are a few notable absentees, such as Amiqus' Liz Prince.

The improvement in the 100 in just five years is noticeable. Of course, there's still a huge amount of work to be done in diversifying the games business in every area. We still need more women making, promoting and supporting video games. Lots more.

But maybe, just maybe, there will come a point in the future when we won't need to do this list at all.

How the 100 was decided

We asked the games industry to supply us with the most influential women working in the UK games industry. We accepted submissions from across the business, promoted the campaign heavily via GamesIndustry.biz and all our social channels, and we also directly contacted companies - including trade bodies and industry groups. In the end, we received over 450 names. To help us decide the final 100, we asked previous GI 100 winners - selected to ensure a fair balance of market sector, genders and nationalities - to help us narrow down the list.

Our judges included: Cat Channon (The Treks), Caroline Miller (Indigo Pearl), Veronique Lallier (Hi-Rez), Gina Jackson (The Imaginarium), Marie-Claire Isaaman (Women In Games), Liz Prince (Amiqus), Carl Cavers (Sumo Digital), Tim Heaton (Creative Assembly), Debbie Bestwick (Team17), Michael French (Games London), Imre Jele (Bossa Studios), Gavin Raeburn (Playground Games), Kirsty Rigden (Futurlab), Des Gayle (Altered Gene), Craig Duncan (Rare), Saad Choudri (Miniclip), Mark Turpin (Yogscast), Ian Livingstone, Keza MacDonald (The Guardian), The GamesIndustry.biz Team and more.