Useful Studios

A Useful Studio intent on making change happen that isn't guaranteed or obvious. Watch this space.

Founder

PlayTreks

I'm an early investor in PlayTreks, an ML/AI-driven SaaS data analytics company for the music, media and entertainment industry, offering  solutions for musicians and artists everywhere.

Seed Investor

Dlala Studios

I'm an early investor in Dlala, an award-winning independent games studio started by some of the brightest and most dedicated people I've ever met in the gaming industry.

Unity

- Leading an internal game studio with designers, artists and engineers.
- Inspiring and creating games for Unity professional services customers.

Studio Head - Solid Studios - A Unity game studio

- Led teams, strategy and partnerships for strategic parts of centralised tooling and process within Unity R&D
- Leader for the infra and on-prem data centre group within Unity's internal engineering services group.
- Established continuous improvement of systems, productivity and success through a focus on people's strengths and leadership capability.

Senior Engineering Manager - Unity Developer Effectiveness 

- Leadership of quality engineering focused on Core technology and Release.
- Coached and directed quality managers for release and sustainment, resulting in positive growth in terms of a direct impact on customers
- Established a Customer QA function with the team in Lithuania. Hiring a strong manager to build and direct technical teams on solving customer problems through code and issue management
- Working with VP of Core engineering and engineering directors - resulting in clear quality built-in strategies and closer partnerships with release & quality engineering

Head of Quality Eng: Core & Release Eng

Microsoft

- Leadership of Microsoft teams across several key XBOX franchises and development studios/locations: Quality-focused engineering for Forza Horizon, Minecraft & Sea of Thieves
- Transitioned teams away from conventional games testing to a world where everyone was responsible for the quality of their work. 
- Encouraged and developed a team culture where trust was increased and performance was measured not just from results, it came from how much others were helped along the way.
-  Increasing impact and quality of teams and deliverables while also eliminating waste & reducing costs by 30%
- Established long term partnerships, frameworks, deliverables and measurements with internal and external quality partners (vendors, contractors)

Principal Software Engineering Manager -  Xbox Game Studios

- Head of quality teams for Europe Microsoft Studios & Minecraft globally
- Transitioning mindset from test focus to quality engineering focus
- Led the direction for distributed teams across Lionhead studios, Rare, Minecraft & Turn10 publishing

Senior Software Engineering Manager - Microsoft Studios

- Head of Eng quality & release at Lift London Studios
-Established a consumer operations team focused on entertainment as a service, ensuring community management, customer service, test, and release were fully integrated, giving the customer a voice across the studio
- Established a test engineering function resulting in an improved test bias across key  development functions
- Restructured release from a discipline to a process – reducing headcount need and overall cost

Senior Program Manager - Lift London (a Microsoft game studio)

Test and quality leadership for entertainment franchises and propositions at Microsoft studios

- Introduced and implemented agile test management methods into teams
- Managed multi million dollar test projects, completing on time and under budget
- Directed large and distributed test teams across parallel product
- All projects released through certification first time without failure
- Top in manager feedback 3 years running

Projects: Fable 3, Fable: Coin Golf, Fable Heroes, Fable: The Journey

Senior Test lead - Microsoft Game Studios

Electronic Arts

- Developed and implemented key specialist testing principles for EA Europe
- Created new and innovative QA consultancy and release processes, reducing cost and increasing submission success
- Managed local and distributed teams driving solutions for QA & test on EA franchises such as Burnout, Battlefield, Crysis & Harry Potter

Senior QA Manager (QA shared services) - EA Europe

QA manager - multi-platform certification, multiplayer labs and technical testing

QA Technical compliance manager (specialist testing) - EA Europe

QA Technical supervisor - EAUK

From writing my first game on my home computer as a young boy, to leadership in the gaming industry as an adult.

After joining Electronic Arts I focused on building effective teams and integrating creative gaming passion, doing more with less, and engineering principles for problem solving. My journey continued with Xbox at Microsoft, where I contributed to iconic games such as Fable, Forza and Minecraft. 

At Xbox, I evolved into a specialist in modern game development & test. The world of gaming engines beckoned next, leading me to Unity Technologies. My role there expanded beyond gaming content, delving into technical aspects of Unity's game engine and then merging both engine and content where I created and led an internal game studio making games for Unity customers.

Outside of my work, I'm a husband and father, and love time with my family. Through my website, marcuspurvis.com, and here on LinkedIn, I create content that emphasizes effective living and making a positive impact, both in and out of work.

MARCUS P.

BoekHoudoe

medeoprichter BoekHoudoe.nl

MIHBV

Entrepreneur

EFFECT Photonics

VP Finance & Infrastructure and Co-Founder

As CFO, co-founder and member of the Senior Management team of EFFECT Photonics I headed Finance & Control, Tax, Treasury, Legal, GRC (Governance, Risk, Compliance), HR, Recruitment, Facility and office management. In less than 7 years we grew the Company from <10 to >200 heads with presence in 4 countries (The Netherlands, United Kingdom, Taiwan and the US) closed multiple financing rounds (debt/equity) and won several (European and Dutch/UK governmental) R&D subsidy projects and grants, such as the H2020 SME Phase 2 instrument.

EFFECT Photonics delivers highly integrated optical communications products based on its Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) optical System-on-Chip technology. 

As a spin out of the prestigious Technical University of Eindhoven, EFFECT Photonics takes a platform approach to integration using high-yielding building blocks within the wafer. Growing different quaternary alloys of Indium Phosphide on a single wafer means that all of the active and passive optical functions of a system can be created within a single chip, which is then combined with simple packaging, designed for high-volume, low-cost manufacture from the very start.

The key enabling technology for DWDM systems is full monolithic integration of all photonic components within a single chip and being able to produce these in volume with high yield at low cost. With this capability, EFFECT Photonics is addressing the need for low cost DWDM solutions driven by the soaring demand for high bandwidth connections between datacenters and back from mobile cell towers.
EFFECT is backed by Venture Capital.

CFO and Co-Founder

SecurityMatters

SecurityMatters is a Dutch-based company that develops cutting-edge network monitoring, intelligence and protection technology to make its customers more secure and in control. SecurityMatters has developed a completely new approach to secure computer networks, called self-configuring deep protocol network whitelisting, which is the result of more than 20 years of research and experience in the field of network intrusion detection.
The company was founded in 2009 by Damiano Bolzoni, Sandro Etalle and Emmanuele Zambon to bring this new technology to the market. SecurityMatters was acquired by ForeScout (FSCT, NASDAQ) for $113M in 2018.
SecurityMatters has business in a number of control industries (oil & gas, power generation, energy distribution, etc.) and financial institutions. Its flagship product - SilentDefense - has been used in production since 2011. SecurityMatters is collaborating with large solution providers and system integrators to expand its market beyond Europe.
In 2016 SecurityMatters succesfully completed a financing round by 4 prime investment groups.

Zanders

As an M&A executive I was responsible for my own business development/P&L, from generating my own dealflow to closing the M&A deals. ZANDERS is recognized as a European leader in treasury management, risk management and corporate finance. From our offices in the Netherlands, Belgium, United Kingdom and Switzerland, we service corporates, financial institutions and organizations in the public sector all over the world.

Executive Consultant M&A

KPMG

Audit

BoekHoudoe.nl, co-founder
CFO 
KPMG Almumnus

Entrepreneur with passion for disruptive technologies

Skills: CFO with 30 yrs expertise in building start-ups/scale-ups, Finance, Fundraising, M&A, Business Valuation, Governance Risk Compliance, Treasury, Accounting, Audit, Tax, ERP, Legal

2013-2022: Co-founder, CFO/VP Finance EFFECT Photonics (highspeed/low cost data transport over fiber optical networks, semiconductor). EFFECT acquired DSP technology/team from Viasat Inc., (NASDAQ: VSAT) now one of EFFECT's strategic investors (2022).

2014-2016: CFO SecurityMatters (cybersecurity). SecurityMatters was acquired by Forescout Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: FSCT) for $113M

taplio

The Battle

MARCUS P.

Dennis M.

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