Speakers

Tara J. Brannigan is a veteran games industry leader with more than two decades of experience helping studios build stronger relationships with their players through community, player experience, and live-service leadership. Throughout her career, she has led community engagement, player support, and customer experience initiatives for companies including Microsoft Xbox, PopCap Games, PikPok, Behaviour Interactive, and Stoic, partnering closely with development teams to launch, grow, and sustain successful games. Today, as Executive Director of Take This, Tara works with game studios, publishers, and industry leaders to advance mental health and well-being across the games ecosystem. She helps organizations create healthier workplaces, foster more resilient development teams, and build player communities grounded in trust, inclusion, and long-term engagement. Outside of work, Tara can be found whittling away at her crushing Steam backlog, tinkering on jewelry projects, taking too many cat pics, and spending too much time on Bluesky talking about esoteric metalsmithing techniques.

Presenting:

• The Journey Back: Lessons after Catastrophic Burnout