Name: Sara Ponnert
Age: 50
From: Originally from Borlänge, Dalarna, in the middle of Sweden, now living in the countryside in central Skåne, south Sweden
Interests: "Caring for my family, house and garden. Spend A LOT of time in the ice hockey rink during season, organising a hockey club and three kids playing. Started an Old Girls practising group a few years back since I figured I might as well get out on the ice myself when being there so often. Club friends joke about us just getting some beds in the office at the ice rink since it feels like a waste to travel back and forth from home."
Profession: DEI & Sustainability Manager at Avalanche Studios Group, and Chair of the Board at Game Habitat, Frosta Hockey, and The Game Assembly Malmö
Sara Ponnert
What is your background?
"In the middle of the nineties I moved to Stockholm to learn how to code html web pages after I had taken a one time only KAOS Pilots Learning by doing a project leading course in Dalarna. That course has set the tone for my work life and my way of leading - with a lot of autonomy and trust in the individuals skills. This is also the way my career has developed, going from a support function, office management, to product management, export sales, business developer, leading EU-projects at Media Evolution, to opening a game studio in Malmö - I have been learning by doing, and by that, advanced in my work life."
"We have grown up now, gotta have working and parental leave policies. People who start their careers in games today come to a mature industry with collective bargaining agreements and overtime rules."
Why did you start working in the games industry?
"After some time in Stockholm a friend called me and said, 'so I’m moving to Chile in a couple of months and my boss doesn’t have anyone that can take my job, you know some about computers, can you take it?' And here I am. This was at a company called Nordströms Rabén Multimedia at the time, and the job was to answer the phone when people had problems to install or play their games.
Sweden back then had several small publishers that wanted to do computer games based on their own IP’s, and looking back, I’m not really surprised that that didn’t work for all of them with such small target audiences versus the costs of developing computer games.
There are so many stories to tell from this time, how much time do we have...? The release party of Codename Eagle from Refraction Games (later DICE) in their apartment like office was, something... Planing a booth for E3 for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy game that was then under development (but never released), and then a few weeks before the actual event, Douglas Adam dies. The party at the makers' of Ninja Turtles house in Hollywood hills, as we were making a game called Intergalactic Bounty Hunter, not released either, together with them. Car trips to Moscow's suburbs to check out the bootleg competition in maze-like neighbourhoods made out of mobile homes.
It was A LOT of work during this time I remember, way too long hours and a lot of partying to be honest - it was a young industry with young founders and people everywhere. We have grown up now, gotta have working and parental leave policies. People who start their careers in games today come to a mature industry with collective bargaining agreements and overtime rules."
How has working in the industry been for you?
"The games industry is fun to be part of, creatives and business people, nerds and extroverts in an international and cultural super mix. What’s not to like? There is a role for all kinds in games. Game companies needs HR people, finance, office, marketing, publishing etc. All these suport functions around the developers is vital for the games to be made. Anyone in the industry gotta know how to both collaborate well, and a key to success as a developer, then be able work to get your tasks done by yourself."
"Just because I have DEI in my title, it's not up to me - it's up to all of us in the industry to work for inclusivity, belonging and diversity."
What is a day in your work life like?
"I just recently got a new title within Avalanche Studios Group, to maintain a culture where everyone feels comfortable being themselves, where we respect the cultures we portray, and we keep building divers teams. We are a super international industry, and in the Avalanche office in Malmö alone, out of about 100 people, we have 35 nationalities from all over the world. But we still have a lot of work to do in terms of gender diversity. We are pretty good in Malmö, in comparison, with close to 30% women in our studio, but there is work to be done for the future and to widen the diversity in new talent coming in to our industry.
In addition, I will look over the sustainability work for the company, what choices can we make to lower our footprint and how can we influence our collaborators to make good choices for humanity."
What’s best with your job?
"That we can always be a better employer. My drive is to see others succeed and feel empowered in their work. I want to be able to give people the support they need to thrive in their workplace, sometimes by help them find alternative career paths within our company, a course they didn’t know they needed or just solve problems big or small."
How would you advise others that want a job like yours to pursue it?
"My job specifically is a though one, as there aren’t that many jobs for this specific role unfortunately. However, I keep saying this to my co-workers; Just because I have DEI in my title, it's not up to me - it's up to all of us in the industry to work for inclusivity, belonging and diversity. My role is to facilitate, provide knowledge, show examples and coordinate the work, but you ALL gotta contribute - be curious about other peoples experiences, ask for help when you don’t know about a culture or whatever it is, it’s fine. But also, don’t expect everyone to understand your viewpoint directly either, we are different, we have different backgrounds - that is also fine, and a great thing, there is so much we can learn from each other."
The WeMakeGames interview series allow individuals in the games industry to tell their story - about their current work, how they got to where they are, and why they believe the games industry is such an enjoyable industry to work in. We move beyond programmers and level designers, to showcase the wide range of roles making up the studios creating some of the world’s best games – right here in south Sweden!