Our biggest Leadership Day event held at Helsinki City Hall! Our event keeps growing every year and we are proud to organise it time and time again.
Leadership Day by IGDA Finland
There were no dedicated games leadership conferences in Europe... so we decided to make one! Leadership Day by IGDA Finland is an international event about how we build companies, teams and working cultures to build better games. We held the inaugural conference in 2019 and with the support of the community, it has evolved into an annual forum for leadership in games.
#cultureofsharing
Games companies, their inner workings and cultures are some of the least documented aspects of game development. Yet we and our work are all defined by these choices every single day. Join us in learning and challenging the cutting edge of leadership in games from some of the brightest minds in the industry!
Less, but better
This one day event is designed around a thought provoking speaker track and ample room for networking with industry peers. We will of course organize an IGDA Mentorship Cafe to help you grow your professional network.
Like all things IGDA Finland, the conference is non-profit and made possible by our volunteers and partners.
Leadership Day will take place on October 19, 2026
at Bio Rex Lasipalatsi in Helsinki, Finland.
Schedule
| Time | Stage | Presentation |
|---|---|---|
| 09:00 - 09:45 | Registration and Coffee | |
| 09:45 - 10:00 | Opening Words | |
| 10:00 - 11:00 | Keynote: Luke Dicken, Founder, LuDic AI | Beyond the Frontier - An Innovator’s Playbook |
| In this session, Dr. Luke Dicken breaks through the noise of LinkedIn-fuelled “thought leadership”, FOMO and scepticism to talk about the nature of innovation - what it is (and often in corporate-land, what it isn’t), and the mechanisms by which studios can harness new technologies to provide interesting perspectives on age-old problems. | ||
| 11:00 - 11:50 | Sonja Ängeslevä, CEO, Phantom Labs & Thành Nguyễn, CEO, DIRGA | A to Z Leadership: One Alphabet, Two Perspectives |
| In their discussion, Sonja and Thành will be exploring leadership principles from A to Z. Each letter represents a core principle or attitude of their leadership style viewed from two different angles. While they won't dive into every letter, they will discuss a few of the most important ones. | ||
| 11:50 - 12:00 | Joonas Pylvinen, Program Director, Kajaani Game Catalyst & Jay Ranki, Production Coach, Kajaani Game Catalyst | Kajaani Game Catalyst: Lessons from Our Game Studio Incubation Program |
| Joonas and Jay will share key learnings from the first two GameLab batches and outline how those insights are shaping the third. They’ll also introduce some of the changes to the program, including expanding participation beyond senior students to laid-off industry professionals. | ||
| 12:00 - 13:30 | Lunch Break / Mentor Cafe | |
| 13:30 - 14:15 | Elina Arponen, Aki Kanerva, Thành Nguyễn & Olga Taranova, moderated by Natasha Skult | Panel Discussion: Running an Indie Studio |
| In this year’s panel, we will dive into how five vastly different indie studios are run, with perspectives ranging from leading a newly founded studio to running a well-established studio with years of experience. | ||
| 14:15 - 15:00 | Alex McKinney-Raphelt, Art Director, Next Games, a Netflix Studio | The Human Standard: Leading Creative Teams in the Age of AI |
| In this talk, Alex will demonstrate how game leaders can guide teams through AI adoption with clear expectations and practical boundaries. Drawing from real production leadership situations, the session looks at how to handle resistance, define responsible usage, avoid quality traps, protect fundamentals, and build a culture where AI supports human judgment rather than replacing it. | ||
| 15:00 - 15:15 | Coffee Break | |
| 15:15 - 16:00 | Pascal Debroek, Support Manager - Game Services, Rovio Entertainment | From Cost Center to Retention Engine: Redesigning Player Experience for the LTV Era |
| Player Experience has been run as a cost center for more than a decade — and that model is breaking. Rising acquisition costs and the coming wave of agentic AI are forcing a reckoning: retention, not efficiency, is now the only lever that matters. This presentation makes the case for reimagining PX as a strategic growth function, introducing a new operating framework built around automation, human judgment, and closed-loop product feedback — with the accountability, investment case, and metrics to back it up. | ||
| 16:00 - 16:45 | Maria Burns Ortiz, Executive Director, The Global Game Jam | Building Digital Resilience, One Game (Jam) at a Time |
| Maria will share how game developers have a unique opportunity to shape how players engage online, for better or for worse. Her talk explores how, as early as the initial design and first lines of code, game creators can leverage games to promote positive social impact and strengthen digital resilience against harmful influences. | ||
| 16:45 - 17:00 | Closing Words | |
| 17:00 - 18:00 | Happy Hour | |
Conference Venue
Bio Rex Lasipalatsi
Mannerheimintie 22-24, 00100 Helsinki
The entrance can be found facing the railway station.
The venue is for the most part accessible to everyone, however if you’re coming in a wheelchair, or otherwise have difficulties with stairs you can use an alternative entrance. Please contact us at leadershipday [at] igda [dot] fi in advance so we can better assist you.
For more info on the accessibility of the venue check out the following link: Venue Accessibility.
During the event we will host a Mentor Cafe. Here games industry leaders shared their knowledge and expertise in short, 15 minute mentoring sessions This was a great opportunity to either be a mentor or a mentee or both!
Can’t make it to Helsinki? Host a Watch Party!
Leadership Day by IGDA Finland has been hybrid since we started in 2019. But it’s one thing to watch the stream at home where you’re working and constantly distracted and a completely thing attending at a remote “watch party.” We encourage IGDA chapters, game developer communities, universities, incubators, and groups of friends and colleagues to step away from their computers and bring their local community together and host a Leadership Day Watch Party.
All you need is a venue, a screen, an internet connection, and some people who want to join the conversation. We'll provide access to the Leadership Day livestream and information to help you organize your event. Our Q&A system allows remote viewers to post and vote on questions in real-time. Sign up to host a Watch Party and we’ll send you additional information.
Code of Conduct
IGDA Finland is committed to keeping our community safe for everyone and has
a zero-tolerance policy on harassment in any and all of its forms - please read our Code of Conduct.
Previous Events
Partners
This event wouldn’t be possible without help from our partners and sponsors.
Sponsors
If you are interested in sponsoring please see our sponsorship package.
Leadership Conference Partners
Organizing Committee
We’ve been making this event happen since 2019. We aim to make it better each year and there is more that needs doing. Drop us a line via firstname.lastname@igda.fi to join the fun!
Volunteers
