Carla is a video games industry veteran with over 20 years of experience, specializing in External Development for more than a decade. She has held key roles at Xbox (The Coalition, Lionhead), EA (XDI), and Behaviour Interactive.

Her passion for process, culture, and team management has led her to speak at several XDS conferences, where she champions efficiency, inclusion, and best practices.

As Head of Business Solutions for XDS Spark and Chair of the XDS Advisory Committee, she is dedicated to advancing industry knowledge, fostering strong partnerships, and driving sustainable practices.

External Development veteran and XDS Advisory Committee member who started in the games industry as an artist. Began working with external teams at Sumo Digital in 2007, before becoming Outsource Manager; successfully guiding Sumo’s fledgling India studio into a fully integrated partner, while overseeing their rapidly expanding external development program. Took a central position at Xbox Games Studios in 2014 to support and guide their Global Studios with External Development Partnerships.

In 2024, after 10 years at Xbox he left to co-found XDS Spark with Chris Wren. A platform designed to bring service providers and buyers together while advancing and advocating for external developments exciting future.

Isabelle Bismuth has been with Ubisoft for over 20 years, where she has consistently championed collaboration across teams and studios with passion and purpose.

After several years as a Co-Development and Outsourcing Project Manager for Ubisoft’s Canadian studios, she joined the Assassin’s Creed Valhalla development team in 2018 as Associate Producer, Co-Development. Today, she serves as Director of Studio Partnerships for the Assassin’s Creed Franchise, working as part of the franchise’s leadership team.

Isabelle’s extensive experience is a key asset in evolving production practices and strengthening collaboration with internal and external partners worldwide. Her work continues to shape how Ubisoft builds and nurtures long-term, trust-based relationships across the industry.

She has also been an engaged member of the XDS Advisory Committee since 2016.

Guillaume began his video game industry career early at Ubisoft where he worked on several famous AAA titles. In 2009, with his knowledge in marketing and business development, Guillaume joined and later became the COO of Glass Egg Digital Media - one of the world’s leading 3D art outsourcing companies.

With his passion & depth of experience in the game industry, he has been a driving force to the company's development through recruitment, training, client expansion, branding and marketing.

Following Glass Egg's Acquisition by Virtuos in 2022, Guillaume joined the Virtuos group and is currently working as a Key Account Manager.

With over 15 years of production experience in the games industry Toby serves as the VP of Global Production for the up-and-coming studio That’s No Moon Entertainment.

He is responsible for the identification, contracting, onboarding, relationship management, and production management of all external partnerships for the studio. In addition, he has been a member of the XDS Advisory Committee for 8 years.

In the past he has worked on large scale external art production on titles such as Days Gone, Death Stranding, Marvel’s Spider-man, and MLB The Show amongst others.

Game Dev is JC's 2nd career - it was an easy switch from Energy to games in 2005. Ever since, he has been expanding and enhancing BioWare 's ability to create the biggest character driven story-based games in the world through global partnerships in art, animation, cinematics, UI/UX, engineering and codevelopment.

Philip Dennison is a Senior External Development Manager at Epic Games, facilitating partnerships to support content and co-dev across Epic’s first-party teams. He has more than 20 years in the industry including roles in art and production, but the majority of his career has been dedicated to external development. He has led outsourcing efforts for Monolith Productions, Psyonix, and recently Fortnite projects.

A regular XDS speaker, Philip is known for his practical insights on agreement strategy and sustainability in business relationships.

Carl got his start in games in 1994. Carl has worked at small and large companies alike from a buyer and a service provider perspective, most notably Michael Crichton’s Timeline Entertainment, Nvidia, Electronic Arts and his current role as Senior Director of External Development at Zynga. In this Business Operations role, he has built a worldwide organization which facilitates all of Zynga’s external development and partner relations involving Art, Engineering, Audio, UI/UX, Co-Dev, QA, Localization/LQA, Narrative, UA and Marketing/Publishing. In addition, Carl helps coordinate and facilitate M&A integrations for Zynga and its subsidiaries.

With over 20 years of global leadership in games and VFX, Arun Honne-Gowda is a strategic expert in external development and production, currently serving as the External Development Director at Supercell. He has successfully scaled high-performance teams for industry leaders like Sony Interactive Entertainment, Electronic Arts, King and Jagex, bridging the gap between internal studios and global partners. His career is defined by a unique perspective of having managed both sides of the outsourcing model, allowing him to champion sophisticated xDev strategies that empower studios to scale with agility.

Throughout his career, Arun has delivered iconic contributions to a diverse portfolio ranging from AAA console titles like Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit and RuneScape to blockbuster films such as Prometheus and Sucker Punch. Having evolved from a 3D Art Generalist to a studio founder and executive leader, he possesses a technical and operational understanding of the CG and production pipeline.

Nikki aims to transform content in innovative ways for innovative applications through real-time technology. Drawing from a background in gymnastics, diving, and climbing, she specializes in capturing creativity and translating movement into immersive experiences. With a career spanning Apple, EA, Lucasfilm, Google, and Meta, she has worked across games, film, VR, AR, Simulation and UX. Nikki actively pushes the boundaries of real-time technology and is dedicated to fostering collaborative, diverse teams through internal and external partnerships.

Walter de Torres is a Founding Partner of Pixel Mafia, an art services company located in the Philippines. After more than 15 years directly managing game development teams, Walter, alongside Coby Chan decided to switch over to the services side of the games industry by establishing Pixel Mafia in 2017. Prior to this, Walter was the Head of Production for the Gears of War franchise at The Coalition Studio and before that, he was a Group Development Director at EA.

Dave Sanderson is a 20-year veteran of the entertainment industry, and has specialized in external development since 2015. Dave has held lead roles in business and creative development across the spectrum of games, film, and television, most recently at Scopely and Phoenix Labs. Dave joined the XDS Advisory Committee in 2020.

Phil is the Co-Dev and Outsource Lead for Amazon Games. He has over 30 years of game development experience as a Content Creator, Art Director and Program Manager. Phil guides the strategy and implementation of external development across Amazon Games, supporting all development teams, disciplines and central groups. He manages partner relationships, and builds the systems and processes that lead to successful engagements.ience as a Content Creator, Art Director and Program Manager. Phil guides the strategy and implementation of external development across Amazon Games, supporting all development teams, disciplines and central groups. He manages partner relationships, and builds the systems and processes that lead to successful outcomes.

Shiew Yeu Loh is the strategic force behind Forge Bridges, a consultancy dedicated to optimizing game development operations and fostering exceptional talent. With over 20 years of executive leadership experience at companies like Riot Games, Electronic Arts, Amber Studio, and Pocket Gems, she formerly served as Senior Art Outsourcing Manager, overseeing major unannounced projects and revolutionizing pipelines for the Sims Franchise. Shiew Yeu specializes in building scalable art pipelines, mentoring global teams, and driving cross-functional alignment across AAA, mobile, and blockchain games. As a seasoned game industry veteran and a globally recognized speaker, her people-first philosophy, refined through diverse cultural landscapes, enables her to effectively bridge communication and cultural barriers, empowering teams and cultivating inclusivity.

At Snowed In Studios, Nigel is part of the management team that planned the growth of the studio from 25 to 200 game developers over five years. A project manager by training, Nigel has scaled up studios and game dev teams since 1994 in the US and Canada. Nigel was the producer for Next Level Games’ first console titles, development director at EA Black Box for the Need for Speed series, and he ran development for over 30 TV streaming apps including the Disney and NFL platforms. He holds an MBA from the University of Ottawa.

Claude began his career in the game industry as an artist before founding VOLTA in 2006. Over nearly two decades, he grew the studio into a trusted international partner for game developers, building long-term relationships across art, production, and co-development.

Following VOLTA’s acquisition, Claude held senior executive roles at Keywords Studios, where he oversaw international creative teams and operations, and contributed to the development of scalable collaboration models between studios and clients.

Claude is currently the founder and CEO of AMPERA, an external game development studio focused on sustainable growth, healthy leadership, and long-term partnerships. In parallel, he serves on multiple boards, supporting studio leaders on strategy, governance, and organizational design.

A long-time supporter of the XDS community, Claude has attended every XDS Summit since its inception.