IGDA Leadership Forum 2009 Recap

The Third Annual IGDA Leadership Forum took place November 12 and 13th at the San Francisco Airport Marriot. This year's event was a gathering of over 300 game development professionals from over 12 countries. The LF featured three tracks including Personal, Project, and Tools.

The Leadership Forum kicked of with a 15 person Scrum Certification course by Clinton Keith. This was the first year of this certification course at the LF and it was highly successful. The first day also included a keynote address by Chris Satchell. Chris is the Chief Technology Officer of International Gaming Technologies. Chris' keynote was packed and was one of the highest rated speakers of the week.

The first day featured Leadership Forum regulars Don Daglow, Michael Saladino, Scott Crabtree, and Barry Caudill. The first day ended with another keynote, this time by Chris Hecker of definition six, inc. Chris was fashionably late, but that did not stop from giving one of the more memorable sessions of this year's Leadership Forum. After the conference action ended the attendees all joined up for a bit of rock band and socializing.

The final day of the Leadership Forum featured Senior VP of Development and Production of Warner Bros. Interactive, Samantha Ryan. Other speakers on the second day included Kane Minkus, David Edery, Justin Quimby, Jeff Charvat, and David Steele. The final keynote was a panel "Leaders of Successful Start-Ups in a Recession Year." Dean Takahashi moderated a panel of Megan Gaiser of Her Interactive, Chris Charla of Foundation 9, and Dan Connors of Telltale Games.

This year's Leadership Forum proved that this event is here to stay. With solid attendance numbers in an economically unstable year, the Leadership Forum surpassed expectations. With the great content each year we look forward to 2010 and the 4th Annual Leadership Forum.