Studio Head I US Studio Kojima Productions I Former Chief Legal Officer and Global Senior Vice President I Sony Interactive Entertainment (PlayStation)
Mr. Russell, currently the studio head for Kojima Productions in the United States, has over 30 years-experience working in the games and interactive entertainment industry. Mr. Russell served most of his career as an executive with the Sony PlayStation division, Sony Interactive Entertainment. Originally joining the company in anticipation of the original PlayStation launch Mr. Russell served in a multitude of roles while at the company. His primary role was as Chief Legal Officer, but Mr. Russell also served in other roles during his tenure including SVP Third Party Publisher Relations during the PlayStation 3 launch; SVP of Corporate Development, and Interim SVP of HR. His career has spanned multiple generations of hardware, software, and game development. Some highlights of his career included: serving on the original industry ratings committee for games which lead to board seats on the ESA, the ESRB and ultimately the establishment of E3; He has produced games, film, and television (all based on video game characters); headed Sony’s Publisher Relationships during the turbulent PS3 Launch; (successfully) and oversaw a team responsible for over a billion dollars in revenues; he has dealt with massive privacy breaches; became a nemesis of hackers; appeared before House and Senate committees, and has licensed everything from game characters, professional sports leagues and balloons for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. He holds four issued patents for game advertising and networking, and he has been involved in Virtual and Augmented Reality since 1992. He is self-described as “the most credited man in video game history”, based on decades of receiving “Special Thanks to” credits; and quickly adds that this “is probably solid evidence of a misspent career.”
Mr. Russell began his career at Sega of America participating in the launch of the Sega Genesis during its brief run to overtake Nintendo during the 16-bit era. Leaving Sega, he spent the next 27 years at Sony where, as Chief Legal Officer and Global GC was responsible for building and managing a worldwide legal and business affairs organization consisting of over 170 legal employees. He specializes in law relating to interactive entertainment and technology and likes to say that he has had actual hands-on real-world experience in such diverse fields as computer law, technology licensing, sports and character licensing, intellectual property and general business law. His legal career included all aspects of the video games business, including game consoles, game software development and licensing, television and theatrical production, patent and copyright management and litigation, technical asset licensing, and complex litigation. In 2005 to 2008, he shifted into more of a business role serving as Sony Computer Entertainment’s SVP of Third-Party Relations and Developer Support, managing Sony’s licensed publisher relationships and strategic product planning in support of all PlayStation platforms. In 2015 He also served as the interim vice president in charge of Human Resources at Sony Interactive Entertainment. Beginning in 2008, these positions overlapped with a new role as SVP Corporate Development, where he initiated cross-media projects that lead to the game IP being incorporated into linear entertainment, setting up the development of IP such as Uncharted, Gran Turismo, Twisted Metal and The Last of Us for films and television. Mr. Russell was also the Executive Producer of Ratchet and Clank, the Movie, a film “based on a game that was based on the movie”, an experiment that proved that a digital game and film could be developed simultaneously, by making use of shared digital assets.
At the end of 2021, Mr. Russell left Sony to take on a new challenge as Studio Head for Kojima Productions in the United States. Mr. Russell remains an active board member on the Video Game Bar Association, sits on the board of TruGolf, and advises a very select group of individuals and companies about the video game industry.
He has two grown daughters, lives in his native California, and is forever interested in new challenges.
