Mentorship Cheat Code: Raising Diverse Talent in the Games Industry

[Music] thank you that's super intake how's everyone doing this morning let's just pretend we have energy there we go all right outstanding so my name is Jim Huntley I'm an associate professor at the University of Southern California I teach in their uh number one ranked USC games program the number one ranked academic program for game development in North America for I'd say the last 13 or 14 years I'm pleased to welcome you to our panel about mentorship I'm going to introduce just by name my panelists here they're going to introduce themselves and then give a couple of sentences on how mentorship has positively impacted their careers or lives and I'll probably go last at that because nobody wants to hear me talk because my voice is messed up but um to my right we'll start with Cleef Adams oh I'm sorry we are colleagues the collective known as Khalif Adams excuse me please shout out to the GDC

app uh for continuing to to keep us together we are one uh uh I'm Khalifa Adams I run the spawn on Me podcast a podcast celebrate and spotlighting people of color in the video game industry and doing that for about 10 years now and in my day job I work as a senior community manager over at firewalk Studios and mentorship has been fantastic for me it has brought so many wonderful folks into my life and has given me so many different ways to help others uh through uh conversations through uplifting them and finding good ways to have conversations around the work that they do great thank you so much so welcome police thanks next up uh not another Khalif Adams Jin pentaton although if you look at the app my face is we are one they are one my name is Jen panettone at this point in my life I do respond to pasta and Panini because my last name is a little difficult I am the head of social impact at Xbox and mentorship has been

important to me both from a mentor and mentee perspective I have learned a lot of incredible skills from some amazingly talented people in the industry but also have the opportunity to make some really amazing connections and authentic connections with people and watch them grow and watch them succeed so it's been really exciting for that absolutely thank you thank you and then in my left Latoya Peterson hello hello I'm Latoya Peterson I'm co-founder and cxo of global games and so we're the first album of color founded game studio uh working a partnership with HBO on a game in the set in the universe of insecure uh I had two careers before gaming so I was a writer and also a television and media Executive before I co-founded the game studio and mentorship and sponsorship which I will definitely talk about the difference between the two um have played Just vital roles in all of my careers thus far awesome thank you so much welcome and then last but not least Megan scavia hello I'm really excited to be on a panel with such amazing people I don't know that I belong here but I'm here I I

totally belong here just to clarify yes I'm the president of the Academy of interactive Arts and Sciences the aias we currently run dye Summit the dice Awards but we also have a foundation the aias foundation which has several Mentor programs one of them is able to find new voices or treat they just did on Sunday and then we offer scholarships and Mentor matching um through our other Foundation efforts and so for me being able to to sort of facilitate uh mentors and mentee programs has been really rewarding to see that what happens for us when you see people pay it forward that's when I know that we've been successful at what we've done awesome thank you welcome I've already told you my name and where I'm from I'd say mentorship for me has absolutely been uh something that has carried me through my career my winding career through uh starting with General Mills and consumer packaged Goods through Mattel on toys and THQ for video games then finally at USC there have

been mentors all along the way to help me and guide me as I've progressed through my career is long and as winding as it's been uh so first up I want to start with Khalif Khalif can you share with us some of you I know you you were at Riot games before and now you got your own startup we'd love to hear about like what what's your best practices are for finding and being a good Mentor it's interesting so I get a lot of Outreach through the show uh folks have been listening to it for a long time and and they will see a guest or they'll see a conversation that comes up and they'll say hey I'd love to reach out because I am looking to either do something similar to what you've done you know kind of moving through the media space and then finding yourself in the industry proper or it's been around you know a topic that has been in there that is kind of connected to to something that they're looking to do or something that they want to kind of embark on um it's been really cool to see various levels of mentorship kind of come about not only for myself when asking other

folks how to do a thing that I don't know how to do which is a big part of that conversation I I think uh you know I've been lucky enough to be in a room with lots of different fun people who have been really smart at maneuvering through the industry uh and and kind of giving back in a way that feels important and and good and healthy has been really fantastic to be able to kind of like bridge that gap for folks who look at me or look at other folks on the stage or look at other folks who they look up to and say how did you get to that space um what's the first steps to get there um and kind of laying that out for folks and being really honest about the pitfalls that that kind of are in there and the wins that you get uh has been really important to kind of like bridge that gap for that initial ask to something that feels really good and sustainable and um uh worth uh for the folks who ask for it as after you may as you were making that transition did you find that there were more people reaching out for mentorship and asking you exactly like how did you make this

switch or change yeah I mean I'm a weird unicorn in the space there's a move from the media side of things to you know working at a worked at Riot games in their Dei layer I worked with Intel in their VR space uh I've done a lot of different things over the past gosh 10 years uh but I think the Outreach has gotten kind of more broad now where it's you know we've started an award show called the spawnies uh in the past two years so now some of those conversations have have gone from how do you set a podcast to how to get a job in the industry to how do you run an award show and the air says I don't know but but it but it winds up changing the the course of the conversation but there's a lot of dovetailing and overlaps about like how do you talk to folks how do you get in the room how do you find good ways to to build conversation that when you have that layer of imposter syndrome or you are really new in the space you don't know how to really connect with folks how do you make those first initial steps so

those some of those things have big through lines and some of them are very very specific but they they all interlap over that conversation about mentorship awesome thank you so Jan you work for a small startup called small company Xbox relatively new to the games industry uh yeah yeah how does your startup Xbox uh look at mentorship within its organization at many different levels um first off I do want to plus one something the I don't know answer um for those of you who think any of us don't have imposter syndrome that's a big lie all of us every day we even you know at the highest levels our corporate vice presidents we asked one of ours you know hey like do you even get imposter syndrome anymore when's the last time he's like this morning I'm having an attack right now so please I'm not joking I did this morning too um but at the Xbox level you know even at the Microsoft level there's different Mentor Rings either can be for you know our different employee resource groups or Community groups so for women in gaming we have different Mentor groups it can be based on like a skill you want

to develop or something you want to learn I myself even within teams I've been on so for example when I was hired at Xbox I started on the Xbox Live policy and enforcement team now known as the safety team and there was this the most amazing program manager I've ever met in my life she's from South Africa has been in the industry for 20 years and she was just so good at what she did I remember going into her office one day I was like can you please be my work Mom I want to learn everything from you and that has been one of the most helpful conversation stations that I've ever had but we also have career jams where people can set up time and they can you know people can schedule and you know as a head of social impact it's a really unique role so I always make sure to at least give a couple hours of time because I always get the questions of how did you get here how did you I don't know I just annoyed people tell them how to do it um and then we have Icebreaker programs and so those are kind of it's through teams and so it's like hey your match was so and so and you can talk to them about this or XYZ so it's there's just a lot

of ways to do it yeah absolutely no it's been um I was I had the privilege of sitting in one of uh the Xbox internal updates and just the amount of support that you all give each other on a regular basis just organically was just inspiring to see so thank you it is honestly amazing absolutely so I've been a huge fanboy of your organization for a very long time I love this way to hear from you about how mentorship maybe uh guided or supported your creation of glow up games absolutely so um getting into the games industry was kind of uh not part of the plan I'd written about games and the games adjacent for many many years but my good friend Mr Ken daker who many of you may know from her work here at GDC and being on the board mitsu said back in 2018 we were at brunch just hanging out hey let's start a game Studio and I went um okay well maybe like it seems like something we could do um and all of these things conspired that led to the creation of golf games

um but one of the places that we really needed a lot of help and support was that mentorship number one there are so few women in the c-suite in video games uh so few of us that get here that can get the levels of funding that's needed to continue a game and so one of our earliest Champions and mentors was Emily Greer who was fantastic former CEO of congregate uh currently uh founder of double Loop games like Emily reached out and just poured into us from the beginning she'd been mentoring mitu a long time and then I got to know her through this in addition to Emily we realized there were just also very few women of color anywhere in the games industry just period all right I know the running joke of this week has been Shanae uh Shanae Bryant that keeps a counter that she puts on Twitter of every black film that she sees at TDC each year so you can look on her Twitter feed and see how I'm sorry about that Twitter feed again thank you okay so she keeps a counter every single year she's been in the game about 15 years lisette's been 21. um and so you know we sit and we talked

to each other we try to figure things out from our place but a person that reached out to me in the very beginning was Jacqueline Beauchamp the Jacqueline Beauchamp is one of the first black women to run a game Studio she had one about 10 years ago called energized and shipped a game called the black college football experience for Xbox we were on a panel together around hbcus and Esports and she reached out and she was like honey let me make sure that you can get to that you can avoid the stuff that sank me right and she started immediately being like avoid private Equity no private equity and then over the years we've just met so many amazing mentors Gordon Bell I mean I gave a shout out in the earlier panel I did on black game studies and the case for black game studies um but you know there's luminaries like gorlin Bellamy and like Reggie feels and may who also made time to work with us Mentor us speak to us help us when we thought the lights were going to go off like just we would not be here if it was not for mentorship awesome thank you yeah Gordon Bellamy by the way just another plug he's also a USC games Professor so yeah exactly fight on

um Megan so when I was when I when we were doing prep for the panel I found a an organization amplifying new voices I'd love to hear more about that I I mean I could talk about that all day it's hearing everything is actually kind of interesting because I'm going to deviate a little bit I used to run GDC so representation was something that was something we constantly talked about um why don't we have more people of color more women on stage we would have submissions for the programming track and there'd be 200 submissions and one would be from a woman so trying to solve that problem is led me to League GDC and go to the academy and start the foundation um but amplify new voices in particular was something that was formed out of gamergate to be honest it was something where we um a bunch of people in the industry got together and said we have to solve this none of the Publishers none of the studios were speaking publicly so let's have some meetings and

figure out what what we can do internally to fix it um we brainstormed four pillars I can't remember the other three one of them was normalizing diversity in the games industry and that's how we came up with amplifying new voices so um I was running GDC at the time so I was able to donate all the space and we had someone from Oculus in our group who was able to fund it um so what we do is we bring mid-career developers accomplish developers you've been in the industry a few years you've shipped a game but you want to take the next step in your career so we give them a free GDC pass we give them a thousand dollar travel stipend because the problem with all the passes that I was giving away for scholarships at GDC was everyone kept saying I still can't afford to come to GDC thanks but you know it doesn't really do me that much good so we made sure we had travel stipends and then we do we help them write their bios and we do on-camera media training and on camera speaker training and we take professional headshots and we're just trying to create the next generation of

spokespeople in video games that are not please take no offense straight white guys so we also break everyone into groups so the mentorship for AMV comes in when you have we break everyone down into groups of five or six and each one has a coach and that coach is someone from the industry who's been around for a long time and reflects who they are and as uh can I can show them that you can achieve what you want and you should put that you want to goddamn Emmy in your bio won all these Awards in your bio and it's not boasting that's really important and then those relationships stayed on throughout the year and it's really wonderful absolutely no and I think this in the in the last two answers it's fascinating it's not just the advice that you can that a mentor can give a mentee in terms of here's how I got to where I am but also here's how to avoid some of the pitfalls that I either stepped into or I dodged barely uh as I was coming up myself um that's equally important especially for underrepresented communities

um so if you were as a mentor on this stage what would you say for someone who wants to get into constant creation from an underrepresented uh group like what what kind of advice would you give them don't do it no just run run young kids are kind of come for you them Tick Tock kids Gonna Get You uh the the the the real answer is you have to start if you do that work you have to understand that you want to do that for yourself first it's not about numbers it's not about trying to get big you may not be the next ex person yeah but if you really want to do that work you have to understand it's a long road takes a lot of work and it's a thing that you have to kind of understand what your goals are going to be going in it used to be a little bit different but you can kind of just throw things at the wall and say all right we'll figure it out now you have to really understand a couple of things one what's the end goal for that which will always change I didn't know what the end goal was for me when we started 10 years ago uh

understand that it's a fantastic way to Pivot into something else that you want to do video games and talking about video games was not the usual direction to get into a space to go work in a VR department at Intel you know I've had wonderful folks hold my hand that started at GDC with meeting someone and saying I like your game and the most meekish way the most Meek way walking up to someone I like your game can I please say hello to you and then that wind up you know four years five years later becoming a job interview because of those good connections that you've built right you have to also understand that content creation as a whole is so saturated that the niche layer of it is extremely important everyone in a mama has a podcast and that's fine but you really have to understand the angle that you want to talk about my mama's podcast your mama's podcast don't you talk about I'm I'm a patreon supporter at the highest level okay all

right all right okay fair enough but it's that conversation of like when you really wanted dive deep into those things that you want to talk about you have to remember what that Niche is and really uh hone in on that because then even if you don't have the largest audience you have a really secure smart uh audience that understands who you are as a person and understands that when you you know have a misstep that there's no malicious intent in there too that's which is a huge part of the space now because a lot of folks are trying to leverage you know the media sides of what they try to do into other careers and we know how it is out here right now people misconstrue everything all day every day uh they can see you say hello to somebody that they don't like and they're like I don't like you now it's those kind of kinds of conversations you have to understand the whole ecosystem and understand that there is a place for you in it um but you have to go into it with eyes wide open uh and understand exactly what you want to get from it absolutely absolutely and Mom check your patreon accounts and make sure no definitely isn't the top right if you're watching this which I know you are um so uh so we

we we talked about a little bit backstage Louie you wanted to talk about the difference between sponsorship and mentorship I'd love to hear more about that oh absolutely so I've realized that people tend to use and I brought up we were talking about this panel people tend to use those two terms interchangeably but they are very very different things so having a mentor having a person that you can talk to that may or may not be formalized I noticed that like in the games industry there isn't tons of like kind of formalized mentorship matching programs whereas like at places like Disney and Al Jazeera and things like that they do actually pair you directly with like more senior producers so that you can actually learn the ropes and have more of a specific relationship with different people I'm happy to talk about that more if anybody's curious but those are mentors and those are people that are fantastic and they guide you and they're your sounding boards and they are there for you when you are in tears about something that has happened at your business or when you feel like you know you might hit a wall those are those folks but sponsors are a little bit different and sponsors are the people that will speak your name in a room of opportunities sponsors are the people

that you might not be talking to as regular as you talk to your mentors you might not talk to them at all and they are behind the scenes putting your name in for projects for internships for fellowships for different things they are the people that are working as your Advocate even if you do not know and so your career Advance is a lot with mentors but it definitely advances a lot more with sponsors and a lot of times you're not even sure you're attracting a sponsor the sponsor chooses you based on the quality of your work and so I always want to kind of like keep those two things separate you can have a mentorship relationship that is really private and that you know you gain personal benefit from I'm just you know being in community with that person but there's also a level of this where someone is advocating for you and that is those two things are necessary I think for you all to advance your careers absolutely absolutely no I that great answer and a great way to from a mentor at a mentee perspective as well as a potential I even think about the difference uh in the way you stated it but it's fascinating to think about

um Jen question for you so uh what are some of the benefits that you've seen at your again your startup at Xbox from having a diverse and inclusive team different ways obviously you know decrease increase increase in diversity and Leadership different series of feedback loops we actually have as an example an Xbox we have this thing called the feedback crew where people can bring not decision makers just people who bring in inclusive feedback and inclusive perspective to something you're working on and I used to oversee that when I was there and it's just amazing to see a bunch of diverse perspectives in a room together and back to the point of kind of you know knowing that there's positive intent knowing people always want to help bringing that kind of stuff together it's just amazing to see the outcomes of that because then you do have a much more robust program in a much more robust outcome right awesome please tell me you didn't spell crew and feedback crew with the K right you'll never know good point

um I will I do want to actually plus one on the sponsorship thing yeah it's absolutely it is so important to have both sponsors and mentors sometimes they are the same person sometimes they are not for me as a head of social impact when I started this role a couple years ago I don't think there were I might have been one of the first I don't think I was the first but I was super lucky to have a series of people at Xbox who I could you know take my pitch deck to and say hey is this you know there's an opportunity here and we can Channel The Passion of The Gaming Community and turn it into something you know we oversee the non-profit Partnerships at Xbox and you may have seen a few of them if you haven't seen me after class I talk about them all day but just seeing you know having knowing that people saw the value in this and that the leadership saw the value in it and seeing the benefit of it and knowing that while I was trying to push these conversations that there were people behind the scenes going and talking to you know Phil Spencer my own CVP bunch of cvps and finally creating this role

out of nothing honestly it did not exist and then just seeing that the business believed in it and you know the first thing we ever did for Xbox social impact was the Special Olympics tournament in 2018 and that is still one of the most magical things I have ever done and it's I would be actually be remiss it's not just me so when you hear me that's a royal me there's hundreds of people who do this and at the same time one of the things as an empowered woman is it is both a responsibility I have I believe but also a huge pleasure of mine to be both a sponsor and Mentor for many people within the business as well and even outside the business there are people who will hit me up on Twitter which usually I just talk about my dogs but you know people will come talk I can say hey like I love the work that you do what advice can you have and to me that's just such a joy that I can bring and help uplifting others I'll point out again the fact that you talk about your dogs is awesome because your dogs are awesome I've seen your dogs they're kind of cool yeah they are cool it's they should have their own Twitter accounts actually I I my ego can't handle that they would have more

followers and I would lose all my followers [Laughter] so Megan we're talking about uh mentorship and the importance of mentorship what do you think some of the barriers are for mentors and or mentees and just building those types of relationships I mean for a lot of the mentor side it's probably time we're all uh we all have full-time jobs and everyone's really busy and and honestly you know we've all taken a mental toll over the last few years and and and sharing that emotional connection with the mentee can kind of take a little more toll than normal but I think you know making sure that you find time to seek when we're talking about sponsors I'm thinking in the back of my head like how do I find the sponsor of my company how do I like how does the mentee find the mentor what programs are available you know we have some through the foundation but and we match mentees and mentors based on who they are and what they're looking for

um but I don't know how you go and seek out people within your own company to find a mentor or a sponsor I don't know if if you have any suggestions for that all right but yeah sure um and at some point too I want to flag that we should talk about the role of white men because we sometimes go oh yeah like you know not so many straight white men but when I was at ESPN I've got stories so of what white women in particular can do start with the worst ones oh no no no no no no those are my boys but we'll talk about that as in terms of finding a spot so I have never ever asked someone to be my sponsor a sponsorship is a selection thing and it's normally based on your performance what's happened is it happened enough times where I started to spot a pattern where someone is in the background acting as my sponsor generally what you're doing is you're showing up with your A game when you are somewhere you're making sure you distinguish yourself in rooms you are making sure that people can see you and the work that you're doing

you're making sure you won't embarrass someone so when someone's thinking about an opportunity they're like that's the person that I want and making sure that when someone you know makes a connection for you or does something that you're going the extra mile because it's a reflection on them as well as you but I've never sponsors always come and pick me so you go in with confidence with a bit of confidence I'm just trying to you know I I I like I like these you said did you say confidence or competence I said confidence because I try to be competent yeah that is it's a big difference I always try to be competent at what I'm doing and then things tend to flow from there so my sponsor at ESPN was Marie Donahue fantastic women's sports there was a running joke at ESPN that there's more men named John than women on the leadership team it was a brutal place to be there were very few black women in leadership at all almost none on the tech side it was just a strange place and I just started noticing I was getting all of these weird opportunities and I was getting invited to do stuff that other people hadn't heard of and

one of these opportunities was like oh there's a mentor matchmaking thing that I got invited to my email I'm like okay that's interesting and I get to this Mentor matchmaking and I match with Susan O'Day who at the time was the Chief Information officer for Disney and I went oh that is weird look at me hell yeah right and so I go I can match with her and then Susan's like oh Latoya you know what's your level are you a VP are you management and I was like yeah and she goes we have a Disney group called senior executive women in Tech you should join and I went great so I go back to Marie who was my boss's boss I didn't actually have a ton of contact with Marie and Marie was like Jeff on the matchmaking I was like yeah she goes did you meet with uh Susan I went yeah she goes did you also meet with Kelly so yeah she goes follow up with Kelly okay email Kelly and Kelly's like oh it's away we've got this cool like new thing that's coming together there's a VR AR group at Disney that you should join and figure things out and then later they were like Latoya are you interested in

artificial intelligence at all join Disney taught me those things but it came because Marie was like you I like you let's try to do this that was not something I could have asked for right so there were formal mentorship programs and I would highly suggest especially if you run a larger studio um being able to put something in where there's like check-in times and structure because it's very hard particularly as a junior employee to understand and how to get time with people what they're looking for what they're asking for so like a program helps to make that playing field a little bit more even some people kind of naturally so like mentors that feel like them or that remind them of who they used to be when they were young so you guys are starting to see like the race gender problem here right like do I remind you of you or do you want to like smash these are really awkward questions sometimes when you're at work and so when you formalize it it takes

some of that gray area out so you're not sitting there all of a sudden dodging in advance that you didn't see coming right um so having those things be more formalized but sponsors normally select you and the idea is for you to start figuring out like okay if there's somebody in the background kind of nudging me along who is this person and how do I like then go thank them right absolutely I love that yeah and let's open that up to the panel are there like what are other barriers that you all have seen or run into whether as a mentee or with mentees or as a mentor hmm the the ask from the mentee needs to be kind of laser focused a lot of times folks will ask for you to be a mentor and they kind of don't know exactly what they need yet so that makes that conversation a lot longer and a lot more difficult especially if you're uh you don't have a lot of time in your schedule uh so that's a it's a big part of that conversation again it goes back to understanding like you may have maybe 30

minutes of someone's time at a certain level you have to have that stuff locked in and you have to have those conversations in your head you have to potentially rehearse some of that stuff and get it ready you're pitching someone on their time and they're in their in their in you know their knowledge to a certain extent so that's a big part of the conversation is like have your stuff on point understand exactly what you need and then give them the options to kind of bridge off of the things that you are asking for so that you don't get the yes or no it's the oh well how can I help you find X which is the the bigger layer of that conversation right absolutely I think time time boxing it for me because I know all of us especially if you're working from home there are days when I'm in back to back meetings from 8 A.M 9 A.M to about 5 P.M and then they're you know just so the priority of time again you're pitching for someone's time so what I will do is when I start a new Mentor mentee relationship I'll be like hey for the six months let's do it for six months because I think we've all had

that Mentor mentee relationship where it just kind of sits on the calendar and like you've you've either learned what you can or that person has divulged the knowledge that you that they can and then you're like oh no what else do I have and like you don't want to you know you don't wanna not waste but you don't want to spend your own time you don't want to spend someone else's time so you want to just kind of get that going and then if you continue past six months that's great you can have that conversation but I think that's probably one of the most important things I would say absolutely and I think that's it's interesting because I I and some folks on the panel might disagree but the mentor relationships that I've kind of fallen into they're it's really a formal question a request you could you be my mentor it's just one of those if I could Circle back and talk with you in a couple of weeks about this topic X or whatever it is or about some ideas off of you be great yeah and then you fall into kind of that pattern of like oh yeah no absolutely and then if the if you gel and get along especially when it comes to students who have graduated from our program if you gel and get along uh they tend to use you as a sounding board because especially as a

professor you're outside of their industry you're outside of their company there's no risk or danger of them asking you about something that might be politically um threatening for them when it comes to their career path or what's going on um or if someone is asking them um so make the decision whether or not it's a coffee chat you're asking for or a formal like Mentor mentee relationship because sometimes it is like a one and done thing like I want to learn this from you or how did you go do this right but then if it's a skill sometimes like if I'm helping someone like for example make a pitch deck that is not a one and done thing I'll be like hey like here's something you could go do here's something to think about and then like the next time we meet they'll have done something with it and then we can review and have the conversation and that can happen however many times is necessary so being again super crisp and focused on what you're asking for what you believe that to be and then I usually always start smaller than bigger because you can always build it's easier to build than kind of go yeah I don't need your time anymore I got everything I need from you and

that's it right exactly we are done that's it right I've taken all the knowledge from you and I'm gonna move on with my career thank you um yeah well yeah I think I think also that some of the more valuable Mentor relationships are ones for me that are not like structured or regimented it's more of a I'll call you when I need you um right I'm I love those because Aid isn't something where it's like I've got to dedicate 30 minutes a week to touching base in some cases there aren't any updates there's some cases you're just talking about personal stuff which is fine but when it's just like hey when I need Batman I'm going to send up the bat signal and you show up it's like cool just let me know when you need me and I'm I'll be there absolutely oh and don't be afraid to give time back yeah that one's I I have never won someone's like hey can you use the time for this and I'm you know it's rarely I'm like hey like I really want to talk to you about this I'm like you know I could probably use the time back too so don't be afraid don't think someone's gonna think less of you if you do that it's not you're not gonna look unprepared you're not gonna look you know no one's gonna look down on you for that absolutely we will see it as a gift you've given us back the gift of time the gift that we cannot get more of

unfortunately um so uh another question for Latoya like mentors tend to be the busiest people in organizations uh when it's all said and done uh what is it that we need to ask those very busy people as we ask them to be mentors you need to be absolutely respectful of their time so let me give you an example from Disney uh Disney did the senior executive Tech group matching because they wanted all of us to be there and Susan specifically was like there's 60 of you across this whole company of 70 different companies there can be no attrition from this group and so one of the big ways was creating stronger ties and asking us to be intentional one day oh this is one of my favorite stories one day a woman walks in amazing and it was Victoria Alonso um so second in charge at Marvel Studios under Kevin feige and Victoria Alonso was telling a story about Black Panther and you would she had clearly given this conversation before and so she's talking to him she was like none of us understand what this means and then she noticed me she goes she she her she understands what this impact is what this means so and you stood up and went

but [Music] um so me not being one to waste an opportunity I was like so by the way hi I'm Latoya I'm new here obviously um we need to match Susan said we need a match let's be can you be my mentor and Victoria was like I am way too busy for that hell no no no no no she's like that is not going to happen she goes however here's my assistant call my office figure out what to talk about and you can get on my calendar and I will talk to you and Victoria became one of my biggest friends in Champions I'm still very close with Daniel Costa who is head of VFX at Marvel Victoria's second I talked to Victoria about all kinds of things anytime I went to Burbank Victoria always made time to talk to me on one of the worst days I ever had at work where I was literally crying in the studio a lot at Burbank because I realized that to move forward in my job I had to quit this amazing thing that I was doing to

move forward for me and I'm sobbing in like random strangers are trying to give me tissues and I drop into Victoria's office and she cleared her calendar and cleared her schedule to talk to me she's like honey you need to find your people that's awesome but that came from you know your mentors are and those people are busy and they're doing this work as a third shift normally so you know if they've got their responsibilities at work and all the stuff that comes in what they're fighting against and all the things that happen we talked a lot at the senior executive women Tech group of being alone at the top and how it feels to have to guide things and kind of not have anybody else to go talk to um and then their family responsibilities and all the other things pulling at their time so the best thing you can do is be direct be respectful pour into them because also a lot of times when someone selects you to mentee your Mentor they're getting something from you as well and making sure you are showing up for your Mentor because everybody has a losing season at some point and making sure that you let people know that you have their back

like we also haven't talked a lot about Squad in this one we talked about mentorship as like a hierarchy type thing where you go up but your crew the people who are with you user also as important and sometimes your Mentor becomes your peer in weird ways sometimes things change so being sure to when you're in that spot being super respectful and then when you switch spots remembering and making sure you pay it forward right absolutely for us when for our Mentor programs we don't invite mentors we ask mentors to apply so you need to want to be that person so you we have a database you have to go and people say can I be a mentor I'm like go sign up and you tell me who you are what you do what you're interested in so that when we have our mentees who say this is the person I'm looking for we can match them up and it's really a volunteer effort I just wanted to point out I think it's really important to just go out there and if you want to give back say it raise your hand and say it absolutely well along those lines as

we're talking about how busy people are from a mentorship perspective Megan What's um as we're looking at you know especially from the games Industries perspective what's that Roi for mentorship how does it how does an organization put even if it's not a price tag assess the value of what they're getting out of a mentorship program um well I'm not as familiar with in studio mentorship programs but for us it's it's really the the for lack of a better phrase they pay it forwardness of it we've had um Scholars go through our programs most recently someone came back and she's supporting with her own money a new scholarship because she had such a great experience that she's like I want to do this now so that's my um my measure of successes when when the mentees become the mentors and they go on and they um they give it back nice awesome and it sounds like Jen you got more structured mentorship programs within Xbox how does Xbox look at it from just the cost value

proposition I love the ROI question because it's not like you can say the ROI is six right um it might be okay thank you no problem thank you no it's really I think that's clear goal setting up front so if I were to go to I Say Hey I want to learn from you this specific skill there's no at no point in time am I going to say I'm a grand master now like this is an Ultima Online where you can just see your skill set go up to 100 a day but I wish it was that's the thing I wish got me into gaming man but it's just about the clear goal setting and when you think that you have achieved what you need because you will always be learning there is no one who is an expert at everything and you will never you're never going to reach a point where you're going to stop learning so I think it's just to the point where you think you have learned what you can from there if that's it's a way to answer your question absolutely there's also I don't know if there's even a right way to answer this question because there's so many ways you can take it exactly and the answer is not

eight or six right exactly it's not yeah and there is no finite answer I think it's more a philosophical or strategic decision that organizations have to make to really invest at the time because it does it has an intangible impact a potentially positive impact on your culture um the quality of the folks that are working on your teams on how well they collaborate together and so on absolutely like for me for example with the um with the I this is kind of the way I did it when I was on the policy enforcement team and I had Robbie who was my work Mom Mentor I actually started seeing like less qfcs and less bugs and features I was developing because she was like I would take her the stuff I was working on and she's like no you need to learn how to read a sequence diagram I'm like what's a sequence diagram um I learned that day what a sequence diagram was but I could start to actually see the impacts of like working with the engineers and just seeing the the you know we were starting to speak the same language and being able to be communicating very clearly about what we

needed the outcomes anything I could do to provide from documentation perspective just to make you know anything I can do to help I think I started seeing less kind of churn and cycle spent so I think that for me was a way to measure it but it's it's knowing again to something you said knowing what you want to ask for and then knowing the outcomes from that that you can anticipate yep absolutely um Khalif so we talked about your your transition I'd love to hear more about the benefits and drawbacks of making that shift from working from a large organization to you know working for something smaller and more nimble um the excuse me the the biggest kind of challenge there has been how do you find good time to be the best at the things that you are trying to do on both ends it is literally burning the candle on three ends as opposed to two yep um because people ask me all the time they're like Holly how do you do so much stuff all the time we know that most people don't know I have a nine to five

job I just think I do the podcast and do all the other stuff full time and that's not the case I've always had a job for the most part over the past 12 years of doing this work so it winds up being a thing where I've had on a couple of different jobs now uh those particular uh employment employers excuse me uh have asked so when are you gonna stop doing spawn on me like when's that gonna when's that gonna end uh and and the retort is one it was on my resume when you hired me or you pulled me in right two I have my my ability to do what I do outside of my job gives me infinite amounts of access it gives me a ear to the ground in a way that your company can't and it gives me a space to be able to talk to people in a way that you don't want to and you haven't figured out yet so if you decide that that is no longer a value in the outside space that doesn't touch what I'm doing in my nine

to five that tells me in signals to me that you don't understand what I do and that tells me that you don't understand the value that I bring so it's a conversation about how do you understand your own value which is the thing that you're constantly thinking about as an employee as a person on the planet as a friend as a mentor as a mentee and it's a conversation about what exactly in the spaces the thing that you do well that you can Bridge off and you can have value in every room that you're in so I think I think that's a big part of that conversation it's been a benefit more than it's been a curse but there's been moments throughout the whole you know me working in Industry where people have asked about that thing because there's a there's a weird part of the workforce that continuously thinks you can't have a hobby and there's a weird part of the workforce that thinks you can't do two things at once uh and that it's a weird layer of this idea that you can't you know the the old adage of bring your fullest self to work right that's a lie they don't want you to bring your full self to work because

some people are ratchet some people don't know you don't wanna you wanna bring your best self to work you don't want to bring your full self to work but I think it's that conversation for that outfit one time hey and I gotta get called out I was rocking with you we were doing two steps together fair enough but it but it's those kinds of layers of knowing that for me it's been a thing that has gotten to gotten me into the door I shouldn't have to think about that thing having to go away for the sake of you not knowing how to use it right you should learn how to adapt to it and I should be able to mold into the space to be able to figure out how it best uh does what it needs to do so it's it's been an interesting conversation over the past couple years of how do you get in where you fit in in the best ways that I need to in the way that they write awesome thank you yeah empowering someone to be their authentic self is the best thing you can do it's it's I think a lot of people don't understand exactly how important that is too like again like I think the the video game industry in quick personal philosophy thing I I love GDC

because it is a place where I get to see some of the smartest most interesting people on the planet do something with their time that is very very interesting it's and and small so many of the folks in this room are here to make games we have all tried to figure out ways to be infused or connected to a thing that at the end of the day the end of that whole process is about bringing someone Joy and that is a rare thing on the planet to do and to spend this amount of time and this amount of brain space to be able to figure that out so it changes that conversation of like what do you bring to you to the space do you bring joy do you bring you know all those layers to it all that experience right so don't don't lose that whenever you're looking to pitch for those layers of conversation it does like Latoya said makes you stand out it is a thing that that pulls you forward in a room right as opposed to to what other people may do absolutely that's absolutely true it's advice that we give the students as well uh when they're graduating like don't don't try to follow cookie cutter rules

about the best way to interview like actually make make sure that your individuality signs through because that's your point of difference That's What Makes You unique when it's awesome but yeah I just find a lot of people are afraid to stand out right that's the thing we come across um most of the time in talking to um younger developers is that they they don't they don't want to rock the boat they're afraid of speaking up in the meeting so that's something that that we can't I can't repeat enough it's just like um you know go talk to people it's okay it's okay to speak up in my opinion absolutely but it's a constant struggle and and and that's what keeps people from I think growing in their careers occasionally yeah well I think in in situations like that it might not they might not feel comfortable to talk in front of the group but even if it's like talking to someone that you trust that was in the meeting with you or heard about the meeting afterward be like what'd you think about it and get use them as a sounding board that's invaluable and that gives you the confidence that the next time you're in that situation you can speak up

um and it's also a lot of it's you know Corp culture organizational culture I know a lot of it is also like we are a a crew of introverts industry of introverts yes people don't know I'm an introvert because I'm not socially awkward but it's but it's that part of the conversation right it's like you do have to pull yourself out of your own Comfort zones to get things done you know so I was I was the hoverer for the first two years of GDC I was hello can I look at uh oh okay I'm just standing here for time for 10 minutes to get a minute of your time that changed after year three yeah because that was money yeah that would stop you can really nervous select one person person that you really respect yeah it's like that one person who you you want to be someday yeah and talk to them right yeah and on that note so I'm actually a learned extrovert so I did not start out with that and uh when I was at the beginning of my career and I really struggled every time I went to a networking event the role was like I just need to make one friend talk to one

person I think one friend and then I can go home and you can build up your tolerance that way if you really struggle in these types of things because it's a skill and you can learn it and master it but you just have to practice absolutely I learned at your learn extrovert is a very good phrase I would consider myself one as well um it's something that you have to pick up over time become more comfortable with in your skin and then once you get comfortable it's it's like a it's like a muscle as long as you keep exercising it you're fine you may need to take a week off after GDC to not speak to them completely legit statement there because you know after an event you're just like I'm just gonna go and play a few hours because I just need a decompress yeah or or you know stream a while but just find some time for yourself to kind of recharge and then go back out there and like it's not normal to do all this right all the time yeah right exactly don't forget you're not alone we're all we're all in the same boat yeah 100 so Megan when um with the mentor programs that you've been working with or

developing and some this is something I struggle with are there some rules of the road or etiquette that you lay out for mentors or mentees in terms of how they should interact yeah made me just really do keep saying it it's be aware of time and emotional energy because we're all just I mean I don't make games but most of you probably make games it takes a toll you put all of your spirit and energy into it so it really is like just be aware of what you're going through and be aware of what your Mentor or mentee is going through both sides that's really that's the best I can that's the only answer I've got be aware of time and and you're more likely to have a successful relationship if you're if you are kind of tuned into each other that way right absolutely um and then uh Jen another question like it's been great working with Microsoft on the Lawson the general they lost and endowment fund that we started as as partners with USC games our program um what are the other uh collaborations that Xbox is participating in that are along the same vein absolutely so we

have you know as soon series of both internal and external programs that we do to boost diverse talent and so we actually have you know a neurodiversity hiring program we have Partnerships with the military to hire active duty when they retire from the military um we also you know kind of this also dovetails into the work that the Xbox social impact team does will partner with non-profits so for example game heads we work with them um HBCU connect and other different organizations to bring a diverse talent to Xbox um it just brings to more a more robust series of voices but I um I have been given the clearance to say this so I'm very excited to say it but I am pleased to say that Matt booty will be the keynote speaker at USC games Expo on May 10th as part of our continued support of the general Lawson fund so it's very exciting I didn't set that up but that's awesome that's right and there's things like game Camp too I mean I I love game cam

so much love all these different Partnerships because at the end of the day you're bringing so many people in because so many people are passionate about gaming and sometimes it is hard to find your way in and sometimes it's through Linkedin sometimes it's through Twitter sometimes it's game camp where we we had I believe um One in Atlanta and one of Nola earlier this year where it's getting youth from underrepresented communities to go build games and it's such an awesome opportunity and they're taking that other places too but yeah the partnership we've had with you all and the Gerald Lawson scholarships have been amazing so I'm excited to see the continued support and partnership absolutely thank you so much thank you they're out there they're doing it um cool so I asked the panelists if they were okay with it and they are uh do we want to do some q a here uh we can keep doing questions but if there's a few questions from the audience we'd love to hear them please there are Mike's in the aisle [Music]

oh sorry we need the microphone yeah oh because they're yeah they pull it up on that oh that's how it's working my bad all right if we can let her go first this is be great oh sorry hi thank you teamwork um I just wanted to my name is Rachel Voss thank you so much for this um but I just wanted to um hear from you just some of your favorite experiences being a mentor it doesn't have to be really longer every single one just like I like the joy of just the wins and I just want to celebrate it with you guys I just love seeing my mentees succeed at something like I have a mentee who is looking to get into a role and she actually ended up leaving the company which can be very Bittersweet right but it was such a good opportunity for her so while I was sad I was like you are crushing it and you are doing so great so being able to cheer them on from the sidelines I I joke with one of my other mentees like it's basically become a hobby of mine watching to kill it because you're doing so well at it so I

think just witnessing those wins is awesome absolutely 100 thank you thank you hi hi uh half joking half serious but how much circling back is too much how was it how much circling that too much too much that is there's a variable in there yeah that is a wide range of answers it's gonna literally vary by person circumstance and the relationship that you've got between the mentor and the mentee um it says can we Circle back on that general rule that I follow in my life so it doesn't matter if it's dating work whatever two follow-ups all right so the first one Anything Could Happen Life Could Happen second time just reach back out hey haven't heard from you yet whatever the third time is on them right third time it's on yeah some of your mentors will tell you directly him a mess just keep emailing me until I find you if they say that go

for it if they haven't given that one give them two wait absolutely thank you thank you appreciate it please hello um my name is Chris I really enjoyed your panel thank you thanks um I'd also just to give a shout out to uh no igda has a people Grove program and at GDC every year there's a mentor Cafe it's happening tonight so if people are interested in coming to conferences and having that interaction I've been participating for a few years and I never really see it elevated that much um and if I didn't know about it I wouldn't participate but I do and I encourage everybody else so just out there thank you thank you appreciate it that's right please uh plus one this is a great panel honestly the best panel that I've seen at GDC this year you all have amazing chemistry and oh thank you so much leave that feedback on the post exactly they'll be at that thank you for that prompt there will be an online feedback form that will go out to everyone so please score us the high the best panel you've ever seen in your life would be great please yes continue uh so my

question is for Jen you we were talking you were talking about the feedback crew and I had some questions about how that's organized like is that a static crew or is it changed periodically is that a project crew is it a per Studio crew it was it was mentioned really briefly and I was like wait you have a panel of diverse people that just come into projects and give their feedback that sounds stupidly straightforward idea that I don't see with a lot of people