About Kendra Hasson

Executive Leader | Mentor | Founder | Director

Over 20 years of leadership and executive experience in the digital media and entertainment industry. I have creative and data-driven experiences driving growth for start-ups and companies experiencing industry transitions. I work to develop teams, strategies, and pipelines that result in growth and positive morale, while consistently re-evaluating that change to make sure we continue to thrive. In a world where you have to stay ahead of the curve, I look to the future to predict the change and drive success.

HIGHLIGHTS:

Producer leadership with Electronic Arts contributed to the Pogo Studios’ substantial financial growth, and re-evaluated pipelines for better workflows, and successful product launches while managing 5+ worldwide developer partners, an internal team, and updating 10+ games and events for our live services.

Increasing the profit margins for Synergy Concepts, Boa Vida Healthcare, Eimear Studios, L6 Solutions, Oak Hill Collaborative, and The Vindicator by obtaining new clients using customer-driven marketing campaigns, driving SEO visibility, and knowledge authority across the industry.

Founder of the non-profit Youngstown Game Developers (YGD) to help a poverty-stricken city grow in the technology sector with a focus on game development and digital entertainment. Through YGD, I helped several indie game studios get founded in the area, added tech jobs to the job market, and worked with other similar non-profits across Ohio to grow the Indie Game Industry.

I have participated in several mentorship programs to help students learn about game development, help teachers teach game development in the K-12 sector, and worked to bring more diversity into the game development field.

Through YGD, Oak Hill Collab, and Eimear Studios, I was invited to colleges, after-school programs, and several events to talk about game development and help students learn how to get involved in the industry. I held several game jams, which broke the industry standard (at the time) of having 25% + active female participants. I was also invited to be an adjunct professor at Cuyahoga Community College to teach game development and marketing with Unity and Adobe products. I was also invited to be on the board for developing Youngstown State University’s undergrad game development program.

Through Youngstown State University, I wrote software to track eye movement for our research team to study cognitive growth app development teachings for middle-school students, where I was published in the scientific research ACM Digital Library for Computer Science Education.