Juha T. Vainio is a games executive and production leader with over 30 years of experience in gaming, coding, and technology. He established Epic Owl studio in 2014 and led the development and launch of the mobile strategy game Starside Arena from scratch in under a year. At Rovio, he produced Angry Birds Star Wars for Facebook in 3 months and helped develop essential processes like Agile Scrum. His leadership at Nokia resulted in a 400% increase in triage efficiency and a 100% favorable review score from his team.

1. Juha T. Vainio
Games Exec, Production Guru
Leadership and Management professional
MSc (Tech), Computer Science
juha . vainio @ iki . fi / +358 400 740000
Latest version of this deck:
http://www.yuuhaw.com/cv/slides/

2. Overview
Gamer since 1984
Coder since 1985
In the Internet since 1988
In Mobility since 1990
Professional coder since 2000
MSc (Tech), CS since 2001
Leader since 2004
Agile Scrum since 2006
Supervisor since 2007
Game Producer since 2012
Startup CEO since 2014
1974 2017
Gamer
Coder
Internet
Mobility
MSc (Tech)
Leader
Supervisor
Producer
CEO
Coder² CSM

4. Key Achievements

5. Key Achievements
Lead Epic Owl’s ambitious mobile free-to-play
multiplayer strategy game Starside Arena from scratch
to launch in 10 months.
Outstanding
production
of Starside

6. Key Achievements
Built essential processes at Rovio, including Real Scrum
for game teams, game jam practices for the game
studios and a hands-on free-to-play competence
development program for Game Designers.
Essential
processes
for Rovio

7. Key Achievements
Optimization of Nokia Triage’s process led to
measured 400% increase of incident handling speed
and higher accuracy.
Triage 400%
efficiency
increase

8. Key Achievements
My leadership received 100% favorable score from my
team members during especially challenging times and
was the only one in 3000 ppl Symbian organization.
100% favorable
leadership
score

9. Essential
processes
for Rovio
Outstanding
production
of Starside
(MORE INFO P.21)
Triage 400%
efficiency
increase
Key Achievements
100% favorable
leadership
score

10. Career

11. Career
Helming a high-ambition mobile games startup
focusing to give true gamers what they crave for in
mobile.
CEO / EP
Epic Owl

12. Career
Shipped several games as Senior Game Producer and
lead a few additional mind-blowing game-changing
productions.
EP / Sr.
Producer
Rovio

13. Career
Leadership school second to none. Managed several
teams including UX teams in Finland and the US and
engineering teams in Finland.
R&D
Manager
Nokia

14. CareerBeing a programmer in several smaller companies such
as Stonesoft and Teleca officially started my career.
Software
Engineer
Several

15. Career
CEO / EP
Epic Owl
Software
Engineer
Stonesoft
R&D
Manager
Nokia
EP / Sr.
Producer
Rovio
(MORE INFO P.22)

16. Shipped games in production roles
Spaceship Battles / Epic Owl 2016 Re-launch of improved Starside Arena with
HeroCraft Ltd
Starside Arena / Epic Owl 2015 Free-to-play, multiplayer, strategy
Shockwave, Red’s Mighty Feathers -
Angry Birds / Rovio
2013 New special game modes and new gameplay
mechanics for the original Angry Birds
Angry Birds Star Wars FB / Rovio 2012 First social free-to-play game for Rovio
Monrovia / HUT 2001 Multiplayer dungeon game on Palm OS +
server as 1 year 7 people project
Games not shipped
The Tavern / Epic Owl 2016 Free-to-play, adventure, builder
Large-scale Scifi/Fantasy builder-battler /
Rovio
2014 Free-to-play, high ambition
Innovative meta-heavy scifi-shooter /
Rovio
2014 Free-to-play, high innovation
City builder / Rovio 2013 Free-to-play, safe bet

17. Education
MSc (Tech)
Computer
Science
Helsinki
University of
Technology
Minor:
Interactive
Digital Media
Major:
Telecom
Software
(MORE INFO P.23)

18. Misc
Creative
problem
solver
Continuous
self-
developer
Analytical data-
driven
accomplisher
IGDA Finland
board
member

19. Mark Zuckerberg introducing Facebook’s
new functionality using a game I produced.
Me presenting Epic Owl at Slush 2015.

20. Thank you!
Juha T. Vainio
juha . vainio @ iki . fi
+358 400 740000
www.yuuhaw.com/cv
www.yuuhaw.com
www.linkedin.com/in/juhavainio

21. Key Achievements
• Established and helmed a company that delivered a unique game to the scene, loved by the players.
Production of mobile free-to-play PvP strategy game Starside Arena from scratch to soft-launch in 6
months. ARPDAU of 0.11 USD, 4.5 star ratings.
• Production of Rovio’s first social free-to-play game Angry Birds Star Wars on Facebook from scratch to
launch in 3 months.
• Successful process development in several teams and several areas at Rovio helped introduce Lean
thinking and Agile Scrum in the company and build competence around free-to-play.
• 6 of my blog posts about Epic Owl have achieved Featured status from gamasutra.com - The news portal
for game development professionals.
• Work-atmosphere survey score for my leadership was the only 100% favourable score in my organisation
during highly demanding and uncertain times at Nokia.
• Optimization of the Nokia Symbian Triage process resulted in higher accuracy of error triage with 400%
incident handling speed increase.
BACK

22. Career BACK
CEO / Founder / Executive Producer
12/2014 - present, Epic Owl
Product Lead / Executive Producer / Senior
Game Producer
9/2012 - 12/2014, Rovio Entertainment
Manager, UX Operations, Finland South &
USA
5/2009 - 6/2012, Nokia (/Accenture)
Manager, Symbian Triage
1/2007 - 5/2009, Nokia
Project Manager, Tech Lead
3/2004 - 12/2006, Nokia
(Senior) SW Engineer
6/2000 - 3/2004, Stonesoft, VDSL
Systems, Teleca

23. Education BACK
Aalto University, School of Science and Technology
AKA Helsinki University of Technology
Master of Science (Technology), Computer Science, 2001
Major: Telecommunications Software
Computer networks, mobile technologies, security
Minor: Interactive Digital Media
User Interfaces, Interaction Design, Graphics, Animation

24. Thank you
again!
Juha T. Vainio
juha . vainio @ iki . fi
+358 400 740000
www.yuuhaw.com/cv
www.yuuhaw.com
www.linkedin.com/in/juhavainio