Global Studio Integration After Multiple Acquisitions

The Challenge

A global gaming company acquired 30+ development studios across 5 countries over several years. Each studio operated independently with different tools, workflows, and asset management systems. Game teams couldn't collaborate across studios, slowing development and preventing games from expanding into new business segments. No centralized governance meant duplicated effort, inconsistent quality, and mounting technical debt.

The Approach

Led a 2-year strategic transformation program with a $2M budget:

• Conducted workflow assessments across 25+ game teams in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia

• Facilitated 5 multi-day global workshops, bringing stakeholders together in Sydney and Austin to build consensus

• Partnered with tool vendors (Atlassian, Slack, GitHub) to design integrations tailored to game development workflows

• Led hands-on migration of multiple Atlassian on-prem systems to centralized cloud platform

• Built and scaled a 25-person global DAM team to support ongoing operations

• Founded cross-functional steering committee (IT, Security, Legal, Creative) to institutionalize governance

The Results

• 40% reduction in asset search time

• 35% productivity improvement after platform consolidation

• 20% faster project completion through standardized workflows

• 25% reduction in build errors

• Enabled games to expand into new business segments and revenue streams

• Sustainable governance model that outlasted my tenure