About.

I have spent over thirty years in the video games industry, and for a long time, I did things the hard way. During my twenty years at Electronic Arts, I reached a point where I realised the old way of leading—the constant pressure and the grind—just wasn’t working. I had to pivot and find a better way to do things, not just for my own sake, but for the teams I was leading. That shift in how I saw leadership is exactly what I talk about in my book, ‘Liberated Leadership‘.

So, I spent the second half of my time at EA and Criterion putting those lessons into practice. We proved that you can deliver world-class titles like Need For Speed, Battlefield, and Star Wars Battlefront while still maintaining a healthy, honest culture. Because we changed how we worked, the studio won Best Place to Work awards every year and we saw some of the best culture scores ever recorded by outside assessors. It was a massive relief to see that leading with a bit of humanity actually gets better results.

And that is really why I started The GamePlan Consultancy in 2023. I wanted to take those years of experience—both the struggles of the early days and the success of the later years—and help other leaders avoid the same traps I fell into. I have shared these insights at conferences from Kiev to San Francisco, but what I enjoy most is getting into the daily reality of a workplace and helping people find a more authentic way to lead.

Every business is different, and I know how complicated the dynamics can get when the stakes are high. I don’t believe in using a one-size-fits-all approach or hiding behind fancy talk. If you want to talk about how to move away from doing things the hard way and build a team that actually thrives, I would love to hear from you. We can sit down and figure out a plan that makes sense for your people and your projects.