Best Startup
At Best Startup UK we track over 130,000 UK startups and over 500,000 people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top United Kingdom based Director operating in the Video Games space. If you think a Director is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.co.uk.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Companies House UK, Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Steve Armstrong
Incident Management Technical Director of Electronic Arts
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About Electronic Arts: Electronic Arts delivers games, content, and online services for internet-connected consoles, PCs, mobile phones, and tablets.
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Ed Rumley
Senior Director, Business Development of Electronic Arts
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About Electronic Arts: Electronic Arts delivers games, content, and online services for internet-connected consoles, PCs, mobile phones, and tablets.
Graeme Ankers
Managing Director of FireSprite
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About FireSprite: FireSprite is a video game development studio.
Lee Carus
Art Director and Co Founder of FireSprite
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About FireSprite: FireSprite is a video game development studio.
Gavin Harrison
Finance Director of LVP
Gavin is an ACA qualified accountant with 20 years’ experience scaling and financially managing high growth enterprises. Previously founder of an award-winning VC firm raising £120m in equity funding for gaming & television companies. In his career, Gavin has structured over £1.2bn in project finance with Disney, Universal & TWC.
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About Daedalus Partners, LVP: London Venture Partners is a seed fund that focuses on the game ecosystem.
Lili Ibrahim
Art Director of Chucklefish Limited
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About Chucklefish Limited: Computer games developer and publisher
Will Stewart
Creative Director of Bidstack
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About Bidstack: Bidstack empowers brands to place advertising into spaces that sit naturally within video games.
Anna Mostyn-Williams
Director of Publishing Partnerships of Jagex
Anna Mostyn Williams is the Director of Publishing Partnerships at Jagex and an Associate Partner of QO Collective. She was the Co-Founder and Marketing Lead at Curve before that.
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About Jagex: Jagex is an independent developer and publisher of online games.
Phil Hooker
Director of Technology of Rockstar North
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About Rockstar North: Rockstar North creates and publishes video game franchises such as the Grand Theft Auto Series.
John Rankin
Commercial Director (Consultant) of Stakester
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About Stakester: Stakester is a mobile first skill-based competition platform that enables competitors to compete with each other for prizes.
Roberta Lucca
Co-Founder, Chief Marketing Officer / Brand Chief, Board Director of Bossa Studios
Unconventional Entrepreneur. BAFTA winner.Obsessive Learner. Founder and Chief Brand Officer at Bossa Studios.Previously founded WonderLuk and BOLDR. Created and launched over 20 products and brands in the last 15 years across multiple industries — Tech, Games, TV Broadcasting, Luxury and Mobile. I love challenging myself and others to be bolder every day and do things differently. BBC, Sky News, The Guardian, Evening Standard, Huffington Post, TechCrunch, Management Today, Financial Times, Disney Channel, Venture Beat, Telegraph and Wired are some of the publications my companies, products and I have been featured. Top 35 women under 35 by Management Today. Top 30 Women in Games. Everywoman’s Entrepreneur of the Year finalist.
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About BOLDR Effect, Bossa Studios: Bossa Studios is a games developer and publisher, creators of BAFTA-winning Monstermind, Surgeon Simulator and Worlds Adrift.
Andy Davidson
Founder & Commercial Director of Lucid Games
Andy Davidson is a serial tech entrepreneur having co-founded more than 100 tech businesses either directly or through Nova throughout his career. Andy started as a software engineer before his entrepreneurial career where he has spent the past 12 years creating and managing growth-focused EIS & SEIS investment portfolios.
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About Lucid Games, Nova Growth Capital, We Are Nova: An independent videogame developer in Liverpool, UK.
Mark Craig
Founder & Programming Director of Lucid Games
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About Lucid Games, Lucid Games: An independent videogame developer in Liverpool, UK.
Jeff Lewis
Game Director of Lucid Games
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About Lucid Games: An independent videogame developer in Liverpool, UK.
Craig Howard
Founder and Creative Director of Lucid Games
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About Lucid Games: An independent videogame developer in Liverpool, UK.
Chad Wright
Founder & Technical Director of Lucid Games
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About Lucid Games: An independent videogame developer in Liverpool, UK.
Dominic Grounsell
Managing Director – UK & Eire Sports Brands of Entain
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About Entain: Entain is a multinational sports betting and gaming group operating in the online and retail sector.
Matt Saunders
Director UA of N3TWORK
Matt Saunders is the director of user acquisition at N3TWORK.
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About N3TWORK: Creating, publishing, and scaling the very best in mobile games.
Mehrad Noori
Director, Global Programming of Comcast NBCUniversal
Mehrad Noori is Director, Global Programming, NBCUniversal International Networks (NBCUIN), based at the company’s international headquarters in London. In this position, Noori acquires and produces scripted content for NBCUIN’s portfolio of channels (including Universal TV, SYFY and 13th Street). He is also responsible for creating original immersive content for virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). Noori most recently served as creator and executive producer on NBCUIN’s groundbre
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About Comcast NBCUniversal: A media and entertainment company.
Steven Dorning
Director of Software of Cubic Motion
Director of Software at Cubic Motion.
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About Cubic Motion: Cubic Motion is the world leader in real-time model-based computer vision and digital animation technology.
Doug Tate
Director of Hardware of Cubic Motion
Doug Tate is a highly experienced software developer with extensive knowledge of animation and a long track record supervising production on extremely high-volume projects. Particular expertise in capture and recording solutions for optimal data acquisition.
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About Cubic Motion: Cubic Motion is the world leader in real-time model-based computer vision and digital animation technology.
Mike Jones
Director of Production of Cubic Motion
Mike Jones is the director of production at Cubic Motion. He used to be the program manager of Image Metrics. He earned his master’s degree at Manchester Metropolitan University.
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About Cubic Motion: Cubic Motion is the world leader in real-time model-based computer vision and digital animation technology.
Faisal Galaria
Board Member & Non Executive Director of Green Man Gaming
Faisal Galaria is the CEO of Blippar the Augmented Reality company. He previously served as Global Head of Business Development at Spotify Limited, as Managing Director of Europe and Asia at Kayak and was early member of the Skype team. At Skype as Director of Europe, he was responsible for key partnerships across the US, Europe the Middle East, with companies such as Sony, Bebo, British Telecom, Dixons and HP. Prior to joining Skype, he was a member of the Policy Executive of the UK’s telecom and media regulator Ofcom. At Ofcom, he played a senior role in the high-profile negotiation and valuation of distribution rights for Premier League Football and co-authored the Telecoms Strategy Review. He started his career in wireless and Internet consulting and was a senior member of Cluster Consulting, which was acquired by Diamond Technology Partners (NASDAQ: DTPI) for $930 million in 2000. He has been educated across Europe and graduated with honors from UMIST (University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology) with a Bachelor’s in Management Sciences in the UK. He also holds an MBA from IESE in Spain.
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About Blippar, Gocompare.com, Green Man Gaming, Superdry: Green Man Gaming is a global pure play e-commerce and technology business in the video games industry.
Andrew Munden
Live Operations Director of Space Ape
Andrew Munden serves as a live operations director at Space Ape Games.
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About Space Ape: Space Ape is a mobile gaming company dedicated to creating the highest quality games for players.
Amanda Brearley
Operations Director of Space Ape
Amanda Brearley serves as an operations director at Space Ape Games.
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About Space Ape: Space Ape is a mobile gaming company dedicated to creating the highest quality games for players.
Simon Watmough
Technical Director of Space Ape
Simon Watmough is a technical director at Space Ape Games.
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About Space Ape: Space Ape is a mobile gaming company dedicated to creating the highest quality games for players.
John Knottenbelt
Technical Director of Introversion Software
Also known as “Johnny Programmer,” John manages technical aspects of game development, business intelligence, public-facing, and internal infrastructure.
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About Introversion Software: Introversion Software is an independent game developer and publisher.
Mark Morris
Managing Director of Introversion Software
Mark has oversight of all of Introversion’s activities and acts as the arbiter between the Creative and Sales-driven ideologies of Chris and Tom.
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About Introversion Software: Introversion Software is an independent game developer and publisher.
Gareth Edmondson
Studio Director of Creative Assembly
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About Creative Assembly: UK’s premier video game developers.
Matt Down
Technical Director & Co-Founder of Pocket Burger Games
Matt Down is a Technical Director and Co-Founder at Pocket Burger Games.
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About Pocket Burger Games: Pocket Burger is dedicated to discovering, creating and building new genres in the mobile games space.
Barbara Lippe
Founder, Creative Director of entreZ VR
Barbara Lippe PhD is a unique combination of video-game-art-director-turned actor. Having designed characters for games companies in Tokyo including Nintendo, Sega, Sony and Namco Bandai and creating art for social games years before the rise of the genre and researching what works for a female target audience she has reached a turning point: it’s not enough to DRAW characters, one must BECOME characters. To that end, she has recently graduated from a renowned London acting school. With that new toolkit onboard she’s moving on from designing virtual worlds to creating drama-enriched content for the virtual reality. Bridging the two worlds, she marries the lessons learned on stage & screen with her knowledge of video games and innovates the principles of character development, status and staging for VR.
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About entreZ VR, Snafflz, Spree Interactive: entreZ VR is an experienced team of industry players passionate about storytelling on real and virtual stages.
Simon Iwaniszak
Studio Director of Red Kite Games
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About Red Kite Games: Red Kite Games is a video games development studio.
John Ribbins
Creative Director of Roll7
John Ribbins is the Co-Founder at Roll7.
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About Roll7: Roll7 make games that are Simple to Play.
Thomas Hegarty
Director of Roll7
Thomas Hegarty is the Co-Founder at Roll7.
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About Roll7: Roll7 make games that are Simple to Play.
David Jones
Design Director and Co-Founder of Bulkhead Interactive
David Jones is Design Director and co-founder of Bulkhead Interactive where he worked on The Turing Test and Battalion 1944. His games industry career began releasing independent games in 2013. David has been part of the team growing Bulkhead Interactive from a small 4 person independent developer to a 30 person studio creating ambitious multiplayer FPS games.
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About Bulkhead Interactive: Bulkhead Interactive is a game development studios.
Caroline Marchal
Founder and Creative Director of Interior Night
Caroline is a narrative game designer with over 15 years of experience in the industry. She was lead Game Designer on Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls and has founded a narrative game studio called Interior Night, working on an unannounced new IP.
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About Interior Night: Interior Night is an independent game studio of Quantic Dream and Sony veterans based in London.
Michael Boniface
European Managing Director of Reloaded Games, Inc.
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About Reloaded Games, Inc.: Reloaded Games is a publisher of massively multiplayer online games, including War Rock, Sword of the World, and Knight Online.
Jason Perkins
Managing Director of Curve Digital
Jason Perkins currently works as the Managing Director for Curve Digital. He previously worked at blue52 limited as the Director.
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About Curve Digital: Indie developer & publisher of fine video games.
Sefton Hill
Game Director, Co-Owner & Co-Founder of Rocksteady Studios
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About Rocksteady Studios: Rocksteady Studios is a multi-award winning videogame developer based in London, England. Located in a spacious, purpose built converted.
Tim Hanagan
Game Code Director of Rocksteady Studios
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About Rocksteady Studios: Rocksteady Studios is a multi-award winning videogame developer based in London, England. Located in a spacious, purpose built converted.
James Kaye
Director of Big Games Machine
I’m lucky enough to have worked with some great games and tech products in the last 25 years. I like to think that with my experience (ahem, or we can call it age!) comes the ability to handle a range of challenges – from creativity around consumer game launches, albeit PC, mobile or console, through to complex strategies for our B2B clients that want to talk to the games industry. I can talk B2B or consumer for games at the drop of a hat. It’s like two sides of my brain working in tandem. I love helping people as well as giving honest, BS-free advice. I may run an agency now, but I’ve been on the other side for a lot longer. What’s usually called ‘client-side’. I’ve developed a community for BT’s first online gaming service Wireplay I’ve launched a commercial games channel for Tiscali TV. I’ve managed app launches for one of Britain’s most prominent newspapers I’ve worked for some huge companies as well as start-ups I’ve been a Product Manager, Marketing Manager and PR bod, so I understand the marketing mix I’ve driven new customer growth and increased retention I’ve had to justify the spend on content, marketing and PR. I know the frustration of fluffy results, and I know that clients are unimpressed when you have no ROI proof. Which is where my next passion was born. PR that delivers business results. Inbound leads, increased sales, market share growth. When things happen like a global pandemic or a tough competitor comes along… You need great content. You need to stand out. So you need an idea. John and I – and our loyal and hardworking, fun-loving team, come up with IDEAS. Not tiny ideas, either, whopping great big ones. So for anything PR related to the games industry – consumer or B2B then get in touch as I’m sure that we can cook up some fantastic ideas for you.
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About Big Games Machine: Specialist PR agency for the global games industry, covering consumer & B2B/corporate.
Darren Mills
Co-Founder and Studio Director of Sumo Digital
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About Sumo Digital: Sumo Digital Ltd is an independent game development studio.
Andy Etches
Co-Founder and Director of Rezzil
Andy Etches is the Co-Founder and Director of Rezzil.
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About Rezzil: Rezzil improves resilience ,performance and reaction times across a wide range of sports, from beginner to Elite level.
Adam Dickinson
Co-Founder and Development Director of Rezzil
Adam Dickinson is the Co-Founder and Development Director of Rezzil.
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About Rezzil: Rezzil improves resilience, performance and reaction times across a wide range of sports, from beginner to Elite level.
Gareth Thatcher
Technical Director of Rezzil
Gareth Thatcher is the Technical Director of Rezzil.
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About Rezzil: Rezzil improves resilience, performance and reaction times across a wide range of sports, from beginner to Elite level.
Alan Yeats
Technical Director and Co-Founder of Pocket Sized Hands
Experienced VR/AR and games developer. Co-Founding Pocked Sized Hands in 2017 where I work as the Chief Technical Officer leading our development team alongside working on business development and client outreach. With Pocket Sized Hands we have gone on to win the student award at Herald Digital Business Awards 2017 and reaching the world finals of the Microsoft Imagine Cup 2017 while also nominated for a game design award at the DC Thompson Game Design awards 2017.
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About Pocket Sized Hands: We specialise in creating bespoke applications and games using the latest XR technologies.
Brandon Wu
Co-Founder and Managing Director of Markd
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About Markd: Markd is a gaming industry that focuses on providing competitive games.
Gavin Price
Studio and Game Director of Playtonic Games
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About Playtonic Games: Playtonic Games is an independent game developer founded by a team of veteran game designers.
Steve Mayles
Character Art Director of Playtonic Games
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About Playtonic Games: Playtonic Games is an independent game developer founded by a team of veteran game designers.
Steve Mayles
Character Art Director of Playtonic Games
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About Playtonic Games: Playtonic Games is an independent game developer founded by a team of veteran game designers.
Albert Marshall
Co-Founder & Commercial Director of QuizTix Limited
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About QuizTix Limited: QuizTix is a knowledge entertainment company. In May 2014 it launched QuizTix, a fun and original series of social quiz games.
Ian Masters
Co-Founder & Creative Director of QuizTix Limited
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About QuizTix Limited: QuizTix is a knowledge entertainment company. In May 2014 it launched QuizTix, a fun and original series of social quiz games.
Dan Pinchbeck
Creative Director of The Chinese Room
Dan Pinchbeck is the Creative Director of the UK based studio The Chinese Room. He is the writer and designer of their games, which include the multi-award winning Dear Esther, widely regarded as the key title in the emergence of the first-person storytelling/exploration genre; the cult horror Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, and the recently released Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture. He is a regular columnist for gamesTM, authored the book Doom: Scarydarkfast, has a PhD in first-person shooters, sits on numerous award panels, and speaks internationally about game design and storytelling.
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About The Chinese Room: The Chinese Room is an award-winning game development studio.
Ed Daly
Studio Director of The Chinese Room
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About The Chinese Room: The Chinese Room is an award-winning game development studio.
Jonathan Burroughs
Director & Co-Founder of Variable State
Game developer and co-director of Variable State, an independent video game studio based in London and Dublin.
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About Variable State: Variable State is an independent video game studio based in London and Dublin
Tony Chamberlain
Director of Movoball Limited
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About Movoball Limited: Gaming & Fitness – Movoball gets you fit whilst playing your favorite video games
Rodney Jackson
Managing Director of Cojac Limited
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About Cojac Limited: Cojac has invented and patented an award winning 6-axis controller for PC gaming.
Richard Tawn
Founder and Director of Funsolve
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About Funsolve: Funsolve is a video games developer.
Richard Tawn
Founder and Director of Funsolve
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About Funsolve: Funsolve is a video games developer.
Nicholas Lovell
Director of GAMESbrief
Nicholas Lovell is Non Executive Director at nDreams.
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About Electric Square, GAMESbrief: GAMESbrief is a blog about the business of games that tracks the rapidly-evolving games industry, to tell users what is happening and more.
