Senior Consultant | Cultural Intelligence | Mentor | Trainer | Coach | Public Speaker | Diversity & Inclusion Champion
Tina Merry
Tina Merry is the CEO and co-founder of Simply Sweet Games, a women-led game studio dedicated to creating inclusive, premium casual games for underserved global audiences. With over 30 years of international leadership experience, Tina brings a rare blend of cultural intelligence, creative vision, and production excellence to the gaming and tech industries.
Certified in the Cultural Intelligence (CQ) framework, Tina specializes in helping leaders and teams build innovative, psychologically safe, and culturally inclusive work environments. Before founding her studio, she held senior leadership roles at major game companies, directing global teams and shipping over two dozen AAA and mobile titles across genres and platforms.
Now at the helm of a startup, Tina combines her passion for inclusive design with entrepreneurial grit—leading cross-functional teams, navigating fundraising, and scaling a proprietary game system that blends language personalization with cozy puzzle adventure mechanics. As a speaker, mentor, and Women in Games Ambassador, she continues to champion diversity and belonging in games and beyond.
Whether advising executives, coaching founders, or facilitating culture workshops, Tina brings authenticity, insight, and a deep belief in the power of diverse voices to transform how we work—and play.
Tina is passionate about sharing her extensive related project management, production and leadership experiences and the significant benefits of applying the CQ framework to accelerate innovation and excellence and productivity within organizations plus helping individuals and leaders build more inclusive and collaborative workplaces.
Production credits
FIFA 18 Nintendo Switch (2017) Electronic Arts: Senior Development Director, EA Vancouver
Mirrors Edge Catalyst (2016) Electronic Arts: Director, Quality Assurance, EA Romania
Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 (2016) Electronic Arts: Director, Quality Assurance, EA Romania
FIFA 17 Mobile, Xbox 360 & PS3 (2016) Electronic Arts: Director, Quality Assurance, EA Romania
Battlefield (2016) EA DICE: Director, Quality Assurance, EA Romania
Star Wars: The Old Republic – Knights of the Fallen Empire (2015) Electronic Arts: Director, Quality Assurance, EA Romania
Need for Speed Xbox 360, PS3 and PC (2015) Electronic Arts: Group Development Director, Ghost Games (EA DICE)
FIFA 14 Mobile iOS & Android, (2013) Electronic Arts: – Group Development Director, EA Romania
FIFA 14 Nintendo 3DS & PlayStation Vita (2013) Electronic Arts: – Group Development Director, EA Romania
FIFA 14 Xbox 360 & PS3 (2013) Electronic Arts: – Group Development Director, EA Romania
FIFA Street Xbox 360 & PS3 (2012) Electronic Arts: – Franchise Development Director
FIFA 12 Xbox 360 & PS3 (2011) Electronic Arts: – Senior Development Director
FIFA 11 Xbox 360 & PS3 (2010) Electronic Arts: – Franchise Development Director
FIFA 10 Nintendo Wii (2009) Electronic Arts: – Franchise Development Director
FIFA 09 PSP & Wii (2008) Electronic Arts: – Franchise Development Director
FIFA 08 Nintendo DS (2008) Electronic Arts: – Group Development Director
FIFA 08 Wii, PSP & Nintendo DS (2008) Electronic Arts: – Franchise Development Director
Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects PSP (2005) Electronic Arts: – Franchise Development Director
MVP Baseball PSP (2005) Electronic Arts: – Development Director, Art Services
NBA Street Showdown PSP (2005) Electronic Arts: – Development Director, Art Services
Need for Speed Underground: Rivals PSP (2005) Electronic Arts: – Development Director, Art Services
Tiger Woods PGA Tour PSP (2005) Electronic Arts: – Development Director, Art Services
FIFA Soccer PSP (2005) Electronic Arts: – Development Director, Art Services
Speaker / panelist experiences
GDC Vault – Crafting Worlds, Building Teams: The Power of Culture in Game Development – March 2025
How Health is your Game Project? A crucial check for 2024
GDC23 Production Essentials Summit: The Producer’s Role in Fostering Cultural Inclusion
GDC 2021 CQ: Super Powers for Excellence in Game Development (Top Speaker!)
DIfest Global 2021 Cultural Intelligence and how to drive measurable results in Diversity and Inclusion through OKRs. May 2021
Cultural Intelligence: 4 Steps for Improving Employee Engagement and Collaboration (webinar) -2020 Business Essentials Summit (Friday, July 10, 2020)
Achieving “Great” with a Distributed Workforce (webinar) for ACETECH BC, July 9, 2020)
VFS Online Industry Lecture (Vancouver Film School) Directing the execution of AAA Video Game Development, o June 29, 2020
Production Essentials Summit, GDC20 (delivered in curated presentation format due to GDC conference postponement)
XDS 2019 (External Development Summit)
- Cultural Intelligence for the Games Industry Sep 2019 Vancouver, Canada #XDS2019
Montreal International Games Summit (#MIGS17) Dec 11-13, 2017
- Panelist: In the Long Run: advocacy & career development in games (Montreal CA)
Project Management Institute (PMI) – September 11-12, 2017
- Speaker: Leading Globally Distributed Teams: Culture Matters, (Vancouver Canada)
Central European Games Conference (CEGC) – February 2016
- Key note for Women in Games Summit at CEGC: “Career Development in the Gaming industry” (Vienna Austria)
Women in Games Conference – September 2014
- Presentation speaker & panel member: “Building a career in the games industry” (London UK)
World BPO IT Forum – June 2014
- Conference panelist, Effective Vendor Management: Maximizing Value in a Multi-Sourcing Environment (New York City, USA)
Carnegie Melon University MBA class (IT Global Sourcing) – October 2013
- Webinar: Effectively Leveraging a Globally Distributed Development Team
External Dev (XDS) Summit, Vancouver Convention Center – September 2013
- Presentation: Effectively Leveraging a Globally Distributed Development Team: The FIFA Street Story, Vancouver Canada)
Leadership Development Forum – Casual Connect Seattle – July 2010
- Panel member for discussion on Career Development in the Game Industry
Insight into the Gaming Industry: a woman’s perspective – September 2015 (EA)
- Presentation: “Building a career in the games industry” (Bucharest, Romania)
EA DevCon 2014 (April 2014) – internal development conference
- Presentation speaker: “Building Autonomy in a Remote Team” (Redwood Shores, USA)
EA DevCon 2013 (April 2013) – internal development conference
- Presentation: Effectively leveraging a Globally Distributed Team (SFO USA)
XDev GDC Industry Roundtable – March 2013
- Panel member/discussion – “Outsourcing Lessons Learned” (SFO, USA)
EA XDev – Outsourcing workshop January 2013
- Presentation: Success factors in distributed development engagements (Austin TX, USA)
EA XDev Art Development Workshop – (July 2012)
- Presentation/panel discussion and facilitated working session: Success factors in distributed development engagements; (Montreal, Canada)