University of Surrey - 1st Ambassador Academy
Event Info
Description
We will be holding our inaugural Ambassador Academy session with guest speaker, David Gardner OBE who grew Surrey based Electronic Arts from a handful of people to a $1 billion dollar company with 1000 employees.
This event will showcase entrepreneurs in action, put the spotlight on the software and game sector and offer advice and practical support to businesses wishing to enter succeed and grow in this growth market. We will have the opportunity for partners to promote their offer to the business base.
David Gardner OBE - David started his career programming PDP-11s in 1978 and selling Apple II computers in 1980 then joining Electronic Arts (EA) in 1983 as one of the first dozen employees. After focusing on sales and marketing early in his career, he became responsible for starting EA in the UK in 1986. In 1992, Mr. Gardner became the Managing Director of Europe. Over the next thirteen years, Mr. Gardner grew EA in Europe from a handful of people in the UK to gross revenue of approximately US $1 billion dollars with over 1,000 employees operating in fourteen countries. Mr. Gardner was also instrumental in making several acquisitions of games publishers in Europe and integrating them into EA. In 2004, Mr. Gardner was promoted to Senior Vice President of International Publishing, a post which was based in the US, where he continued to expand his international responsibilities, with a focus on Asia. Shortly, thereafter, he was appointed to Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer of Worldwide Studios. During this period, he helped lead the reorganisation of the Studio business and expanded EA’s presence in the key Asian markets of Korea and China.
Mr. Gardner left EA in August of 2007 to return to live in Europe
with his family. He was awarded an OBE (Officer of the Most Excellent
Order of the British Empire) on the Queen’s Birthday in June 2007.
From
2008 to 2009 he was CEO of Atari and is now an active angel investor in
technology and new media companies.
