Consultants

The team includes a growing core of partners and consultants, and also arrangements with academics and other consulting firms for occasions when other specialists are required.

Ian Baverstock

Ian is a founding partner at Tenshi Consulting. He has been growing and leading businesses in the games and technology sectors since 1989. This has included a 4 year spell as CEO of 300 man game developer Kuju Entertainment, an IPO on the AIM market, several trade sales of businesses and various fund raising exercises. Operationally, Ian led Kuju’s creative and business development expertise for many years, acquiring in-depth knowledge of marketing and brand development in the creative sector. Ian graduated from Bristol University with an Honours degree in Aeronautical Engineering in 1985.  Outside of his commercial roles, Ian was Chairman of TIGA, the UK games developers’ trade association, for 4 years. He is a Director of the South East Media Network organisation, a member of the Game Developers Conference Advisory Board and a Director of the One Big Game charity initiative. Ian is a Chartered Engineer and Member of the British Computer Society.

Jonathan Newth

Jonathan is a founding partner at Tenshi Consulting. Jonathan has over 20 years commercial, technical  and corporate development experience as a Director of private and public companies in the new media and technology sectors. Since founding his first business in 1989 Jonathan has led both private and public fund raising activities, business acquisitions and disposals. As CEO of Kuju Jonathan oversaw the growth of the business from 35 staff when he lead an MBO in 1998, through public flotation on the London AIM market, to become a multi-site business employing more than 200 people with offices around the world.  Jonathan graduated from York University with Honours in Physics and Computer Science.

Ed Daly

Ed is the managing partner of Tenshi Consulting.  Following a number of technical roles Ed gained 12 years’ experience as Managing Director of games development studios. He has led several successful start-up companies including console developer Zoe Mode, which Ed grew to a 150 man strong business across studios in the UK and US developing family console games.  Ed brings experience of B2B business development strategy and agile project management among a broad range of skills.  Ed is completing an MBA at Cranfield University, focusing on strategy and economics.  Ed was a founding director of TIGA, the UK games developers’ trade association, and has a BSc Hons in Computer Science.

Jules Davis

Jules has over 25 years technical and commercial development experience as a Director of private and public companies in the new media and technology sectors. He has personally built the technology for more than 20 games and overseen the technology strategy, development and production across multiple studios.  More recently he was part of the founding team at Geomerics, and spent 5 years as CTO developing the revolutionary lighting tools and technology. Jules is a founder member of the Microsoft Direct X Advisory board and contributes to both the Xbox and Intel Graphics advisory boards.  More recently Jules has focussed on online and mobile gaming, working on a server backed platform for cross-promotion of games as part of a new startup and acting as Technical Director and Architect on a new social game.  Jules graduated from University of Sussex with 1st Honours in Computer Systems Engineering.

Gina Fegan

Coming to convergence in digital media from a background in engineering, feature film production, and public sector policy implementation, she has spent time on the emerging relationships between traditional media, new technologies and telecommunications and has advised international media companies, financing organisations, creative content producers and public sector agencies. She set up and ran the acclaimed digital content sector consortium ‘South East Media Network’ (SEMN), founded the UK Film Council’s regional screen agency Screen South, and launched the online distribution platform ‘Digitaldeli’. Currently she is on the BBC online advisory board, the advisory committee for Digital Hollywood and is a member of BAFTA. Gina is also an active feature film producer. D-Media, following on from SEMN, is a founder of the national network of digital clusters ‘Onedigital’ and of the European network the ‘EU Digital Think Tank’ Gina also contributes to the EU Media Program’s company support initiative at MIPTV and MIPCOM and assists the Technology Strategy Board and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Gina Jackson

Gina has 20 years production, business and strategic development experience in the Games and Mobile Phone industries, having worked for games developers, publishers and format holders.  As an early evangelist for mobile gaming she joined market leader Nokia in 2000 to bring developers and publishers to a whole new platform and distribution model. Developing within emerging technology she established and headed the New Media Business Development team at Tomb Raider’s Publisher Eidos, generating new revenue streams through building digital distribution networks for mobile, PC and console. This involved creating a portfolio of existing games titles, expanding brands to new formats and developing original IPs.  Most recently Gina has been creating and delivering mobile games strategies for boxed product developers; portfolio planning with licensed IP and developing new audiences for non game brands using a multi-platform strategy.

Harry Holmwood

Harry started his career as a games programmer, designer and musician, working for a start-up developer before heading to Sony to help them launch their first PlayStation.  In 1996, he founded a game development studio, which was listed on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange in 1999 with a £20m valuation and went on to launch an online service which was sold in 2001. He was also a director of a pioneering motion gaming company sold to US group PDP in 2008, and spent two years in San Diego, California, as PDP’s VP of Software and Licensing.  He advises numerous  companies and investors in and around the entertainment and technology sector, lectures at industry and academic seminars, helps troubled businesses survive and healthy ones grow.  Harry graduated from the University of Southampton in 1992, with an Honours degree in Computer Science.

Kevin Holloway

Kevin has nearly 30 years operational and commercial development experience running companies and projects in the new media sector – specialising in mobile. He was an early pioneer in developing the downloadable mobile phone java game market and now advises
companies on strategies for deploying products and marketing services on the latest generation of smartphones (iPhone, Android, etc). Kevin is a part-time business mentor for the SetSquared organisation - giving support and advice to technology startups from Surrey, Southampton, Bath and Bristol universities. Kevin has an honours degree in Physics & Electronic Engineering from the University of Kent at Canterbury, and an MBA from the Open University.

Matt Spall

Matt is a BAFTA winning video games industry veteran with extensive expertise in the many aspects of the design, production, logistics, marketing/PR, and business development lifecycles of games projects.  In a 20+ year career he has been instrumental in bringing several hundred games to market. Matt was founder and CEO of Morpheme Wireless, a business that built up a significant IP base, releasing games titles across multiple formats as well as launching several online game sites.  Matt’s experience encompasses physical and digital distribution, with specialisation in commercial exploitation planning around emerging formats. Through research and working with new technologies Matt has established a detailed understanding of: connected and Smart TV devices, sourcing content, portfolio management and content specification based on demographic profiling; embedded electronics and its potential utilisation as an entertainment medium.  The most recent of Matt’s research is around the gamification of non-game related pursuits – building social interaction, competition and collaboration into mass market pursuits through the utilisation of ubiquitous computing platforms.

Guy Wilday
Guy is an experienced Studio Head with a proven track record for delivering AAA quality games. He established the Colin McRae Rally studio for Codemasters and managed the franchise over four title iterations. He then set up the SEGA Racing Studio coordinating the entire startup process through to the successful release of the BAFTA nominated SEGA Rally. Guy has been acting as an independent consultant for the past 3 years with a focus on due diligence, business development and publisher relations. In addition to his consultancy work Guy has been instrumental in establishing the Gamer Camp educational programme with Birmingham City University which is cited as an example of best practise in the Livingston-Hope Report. Guy graduated from Aston University with an honours degree in Electronic Engineering and Computer Science.