Gaming Upfronts

Lauren Baines is Global Sales Director at Bidstack looking after the agency and client portfolio, developing sponsorship and in-game advertising solutions across Bidstack's gaming titles. Lauren has extensive experience working with brands on developing strategies for new and innovative media choices. Her past experience includes a host of roles across OOH focusing on driving the acceleration of DOOH and more recently as International Creative Director.at JCDecaux.

Alex joined in January 2020 to fly the Adverty flag high in the UK. He has 10+ years of experience working in senior sales roles within companies such as Metro/Evening Standard, Immediate Media, Sublime Skinz, and in his last role was Senior Commercial Development Manager for Bidstack. Now as Director of Sales at Adverty, Alex is the port of call for all thing in-game advertising. Even better, If you ever have a question about Final Fantasy, Dragonball Z or Pokémon, Alex is your go to guy!

Elena Mancini is the Senior Brand Manager for Pringles Europe. During her time at Pringles, she has successfully grown the brand looking after aperitif as a key occasion and gaming and now works on future product innovations. Elena was the project leader of the Pringles Gaming 2021 activation with the objective to make Pringles the #1 snack of choice for gamers. After interning for Kellogg’s, she moved to Verona to work for European fresh pasta leader, Giovanni Rana as Brand Manager before returning back to Kellogg’s to work on Special K and then Pringles. Elena has a Business Management Master from Bocconi University (Milan, Italy) and has international experience from living and studying in three different continents: South America, the US and Asia, before coming back to Europe to work for Kellogg’s.

Adam Harris is the Global Head of the Twitch Brand Partnership Studio. Adam is an award-winning creative leader with 18 years global media experience in the worlds of gaming, sports and entertainment. He advocates for gaming as the next big marketing opportunity and specialises in developing global gaming strategies for endemic and non-endemic brands. Adam also provides thought leadership on livestreaming best practice and how to create immersive real time digital brand experiences to the ad-blocking generation. Prior to Twitch, Adam served as International Creative Director for Time Out, establishing the company's commercial content teams. Adam was named one of the world’s top 100 digital marketers in the Drum Digerati 2019 list, on the 2019 #Influencer50 list of the brightest minds in global influencer marketing and has collected a 'Leader In Sport' under 40 award.

Stephen McSweeney is a Digital Marketing Specialist at Kellogg working on Pringles Europe. Stephen joined Kellogg’s in 2019 and was based in Geneva, Switzerland before recently relocating to Dublin, Ireland. As part of the Kellogg’s Europe Content & Digital team, Stephen provides Digital consultancy and executional expertise to cross-functional teams at Pringles, ensuring that best-in-class Digital Marketing plans are launched across Europe. Stephen is passionate about advancing the brand’s gaming objective by using new social / digital capabilities and media partners that amplify the gaming experience. He has extensive experience in Digital Marketing with a focus on Digital campaign planning, development and optimisation, and has worked in previous roles that span a wide range of industries including FMCG, hospitality, energy & tech.

Leah Alexandra is one of the UK’s most popular female Gamers, best known for her hugely popular twitch.tv channel. She began streaming on twitch.tv in 2015 amassing a massive 168k followers and quickly becoming partnered. Her stream is a variety of the latest in AAA gaming as well as adventures into smaller indie titles. In 2018 Leah joined the Xbox UK team as host of the official Xbox On Youtube Channel, producing content for their channels as well as hosting Xbox live events including E3, Gamescom and X019. Since then Leah has moved on to be the ambassador for Ford esports in 2020 and is currently the ambassador for Logitech gaming. Leah is also the host of both Microsoft's regular live show, "Forza Monthly" and the reveal series, "Dying2Know", for the highly anticipated "Dying Light 2". Leah has worked with a number of the top brands in gaming including, Xbox, Playstation, Bungie, Asus, Marvel and many more.

Jonathon is CEO and co-founder leading vision and strategy at Frameplay. Jonathon’s passion for gaming, building engaging products, and commercialization led him to start Frameplay in 2018. Jon is a serial entrepreneur having started previous businesses in building media and retail products, and an internet technology consultancy.

Edward started his career in South Africa at Sports Agency, Accelerate Sport, where he progressed from Key Accounts Executive to CEO at the age of 27. He oversaw significant commercial growth for the National Federations they represented (Netball, Surfing, Squash, COSAFA) as well as compiled the successful bid to bring the Netball World Cup to Cape Town in 2023. Since joining Fnatic he has overseen BMW's hugely successful entrance into the market, including their nominations for multiple awards. He also helped negotiate Gucci's first entrance into the space through their limited edition Dive watch collaboration, while managing a number of other partners in the Fnatic stable including their yet to be announced new Major partner.

Dan is passionate about delivering creative and insightful media solutions that maximize growth opportunities for clients. With 14 years media experience, Dan has spent the majority of his career at Mindshare Worldwide working with many of the world’s most admired businesses; most recently leading International Strategy and Planning for Facebook. Dan has an accomplished occupational history with a unique standard of experience in designing, building and delivering innovative executions with strategic partners, integral to communications strategy, partnerships and media planning. Gaming and its associated culture has not only influenced those solutions, but has often been a staple as part of the communications.

Meet Frank, a zombie from West of Dead’s Purgatory. Previously causing trouble in his video game world, he broke through to cause mischief in ours, all for the love of Pringles.