Jesse Alexander is a co-executive producer and writer on Heroes, NBC’s new epic saga that chronicles the lives of ordinary people who are discovering they possess extraordinary abilities.

Previously, Alexander was an executive producer on ABC’s Alias, alongside college friend J.J. Abrams.  Abrams then enlisted Alexander as a co-executive producer on ABC’s Emmy award-winning drama Lost.  Other past projects include the film Eight Legged Freaks, starring David Arquette, and Sony Playstation’s Apocalypse video game, featuring Bruce Willis.  His first professional job as a writer was creating a new opening sequence for Pamela Anderson’s Barb Wire at Dark Horse Entertainment.

A self-admitted “fan boy from way back,” this Santa Barbara native began his career creating Super-8 movies with his Star Wars action figures. 

Alexander studied film at New York University and the American Film Institute.

Gregg Backer is the founder of Foglight Entertainment, a New York-based production company that has swiftly assembled an extensive slate of material and aggressively built up original programs for network and cable. Foglight Entertainment is currently in production on a series for Starz! Network entitled Hollywood Goes Gaming, which looks at the growing convergence between the Hollywood film studios and the videogame industry. Over the last three years, Backer has produced shows for A&E, VH1, MTV, E! Entertainment, Court TV, Starz! Network, Fox Television Studios, HBO, ESPN, Lions Gate Home Video, and the Style Network. Backer created and executive produced the reality show Inked for A&E, and recently finished production on 24 webisodes for the Food Network. In 2005, Gregg
executive produced Brothers in Arms, a two-hour documentary based on the videogame of the same name. The game depicts the experiences of a parachute squad during the Normandy Invasion. Before starting Foglight in 2002, Backer worked at HBO Sports for ten years, handling all aspects of live television production. His documentary work there was recognized with an Emmy and Ace Award.

A four-year veteran of Electronic Arts, Brandon Barber is the Director of Entertainment Development and Programming, managing EA's branded entertainment activities across all TV, Web and digital mediums. Originally brought in to help establish EA's music marketing group, Barber has worked to broaden EA's entertainment footprint by working with am array of media and production partners on a broad range entertainment products based on EA franchises, such as the ESPN original series Madden Nation and NBA LIVE Bring It Home on ESPN and dozens of product-focused television shows and integrations.

Before his work at EA, Barber was the fifth employee at the original Napster, taking the service from 100k users to 100mm during his tenure and managing all aspects of the product experience and brand. Prior to that, he was a product manager and editorial contributor at Rollingstone.com and other Tunes.com properties. Barber holds a bachelor's degree from Marquette University and credentials in creative advertising from Northwestern University. Barber also co-authored a how-to manual on digital music called Sam's Teach Yourself E-Music Today, which was published by Macmillan USA in 2000.

Trivia: Nick worked on two of the greatest baseball sims of all time: Tony La Russa Baseball and High Heat Baseball.

His story: Grew up in L.A. Started out as a board gamer — AD & D, strategy games, etc. Became an avid Diplomacy player. "Which led to me getting my first game job," Nick says.

A group of his fellow board gamers had previously formed New World Computing. Nick started working there while on a summer vacation from college. "When it was time for me to go back to U.C. Santa Barbara to finish my C.P.A. program, they were like, 'You can't; we're not done with the game,' “he says. "They basically kidnapped me and didn't let me go back to school."

At New World, Nick says he wore "lots of hats": writer, designer, data tables, event design, story writing, map making, etc. "I was the only person at the company who liked to write, so I did the manuals and hint books and ad copy and press releases," he says.

After a two and a half year stint at New World, Nick's next stop was Strategic Simulations (SSI) in Silicon Valley to do some producing, project managing, and external development. The VP of research and development one day asked Nick if he liked baseball. "I said yes," Nick remembers. "And the guy says, 'Great! We signed up to do a baseball game and you're the only one [in the company] who knows anything about it.' "

The result: the classic Tony LaRussa Baseball. Nick worked on sports games, fantasy RPG's (including AD & D), and wargames. "By the time I left SSI five years later, I was running external development and about half of internal development," he says.

Nick's parents were disappointed in him for never having finished college. "I had a ponytail, three earrings, and wore shorts to work every day," he says. "My dad kept asking me when I was going to buy a suit and get a real job. Then I bought my first house and he was like, 'Oh. Never mind.' "

After SSI, Nick started a new company with a former New World alumnus to make PlayStation games. But when their publisher failed to pay up on a deal, the small company came to a "very painful end," Nick says.

After that, Nick wound up at the trading card company, Upper Deck. Things got off to a promising start: the company had patented a unique technology that allowed them to actually put computer data on their baseball cards. Then Major League Baseball went on strike. "And the bottom fell out of the trading card industry," Nick says.

The next stop: Nick was hired by Trip Hawkins to run the Internet division at 3DO. He worked on the now-defunct High Heat Baseball series, which won "sports game of the year several years in a row," Nick adds.

For his next adventure, his old pals from New World would come through for Nick once again. Mark Caldwell had just gotten funding from SOE to start a company to make MMOs. "They wanted Mark to start a second project at the same time, and he didn't have enough bandwidth to do both, so he asked me to come down," he says.

After working as a developer for SOE for two years, Nick was eventually hired by the company. His mandate: to get SOE products onto the consoles. "Before I started, we'd shipped two console games," he says. "Since I started, we've shipped like eight to 10. Building up the console business here has been a ton of fun. The thing I really like about being here is if they realize you have expertise in something, they let you run with it."

Nick says he doesn't over-do it the way he once did. "I would do crazy crunches," he says. "I'd put in near 100-hour work weekends.   Come in Friday and leave Monday without sleeping.  But I once collapsed in a New York hotel room with pneumonia. I'd literally nearly killed myself with work. Now I'm very much in favor of people living normal lives. As a studio head, I try to set that example."

Corey Bridges is helping build the world's leading network of Massively Multiplayer Online Games and 3D virtual worlds. Responsible for business development and strategic marketing, he brings experience from some of the most influential companies in the high-tech and entertainment industries to Multiverse, including Netflix, Netscape, Zone Labs, Borland and The Discovery Channel.

N'gai Croal is general editor at Newsweek, where he has covered technology, including videogames, since 1995. He also writes for the magazine's Arts and Entertainment section on topics ranging from "The Matrix" to performers like Limp Bizkit and Kid Rock. Before coming to Newsweek he was a producer at Digital Ink, The Washington Post's first online service, and has also directed and produced Off-Off-Broadway theatre.

Other entrepreneurial successes include co-founding Digital Rights, subsequently acquired by Liberty One; as well as co-founding Parcelhouse, an international middleware software developer with clients including FedEx, DHL, and IKEA. During his tenure as Senior Vice President of Encyclopedia Britannica, Davis had P&L responsibility for the Britannica.com and CD Rom business units.

Mesh Flinders is a creator of as well as writer and director for Lonelygirl15, the internet and pop culture phenomenon which has garnered more than 40 million views since the first video went online in Summer 2006. Lonelygirl15 began when the characters that Mesh Flinders and Miles Beckett had been creating in their minds met at a party in early 2006. All of the scenes set in main character Bree's bedroom were actually filmed in Mesh's own room. Many of the character's key nuances (home schooling, social issues, love of nature) come from Flinder's own experiences leading Bree to be referred to as his "alter ego."

Mr. Flinders is a graduate of Occidental College with a B.A. in Film. He left a job as a Production Assistant to pursue the creation of Lonelygirl15 and has been an assistant to several film directors. He is the recipient of a 2003 Briarcombe Fellowship as well as the 2004 Panavision New Filmmakers Award which allowed him to complete his first short film, Pond. Pond has since premiered at several International Film Festivals including the 2006 New York Film Festival. He is currently writing and developing feature film projects to direct in 2007 as well as continuing his day-to-day work on Lonelygirl15.

As Outspark's Chief Studio Officer, Nick Foster applies his world-class expertise and leadership in entertainment technology, animation and production to spearhead the company's convergent production efforts with Hollywood studios and large media companies. Nick has spent the past ten years in the motion picture and animated film industries. Most recently he served as CTO at Starz Media where he led the technology efforts for The Simpsons Movie. He also served as head of global FX for DreamWorks Animation where he led technical and creative development teams for Shrek, Shrek 2, Madagascar and Over the Hedge. In 1999 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded him with a Technical Achievement Award for contributions to the special effects industry. Nick holds a PhD in computer science from the University of Pennsylvania. His first job out of college was building neutron detectors at a nuclear reactor in France.

Brent Friedman is a renowned multi-platform writer with over fifteen years of experience in film, television and videogames. Feature credits include The Resurrected, Mortal Kombat Annihilation and the upcoming Foodfight! In TV, Brent has written and produced for such shows as Dark Skies, The Twilight Zone and Star Trek: Enterprise. Most recently, Brent wrote the block-buster EA videogame Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, as well as Afterworld, a new web and mobile sci-fi series.

Gilles Garceau is animation director at Ubisoft’s world-class video game development studio in Montreal. Gilles has worked for Ubisoft for more than two and a half years during which he has been a senior animator on some of the video game industry’s most critically-acclaimed projects including Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Far Cry Instincts, and animation lead on the recently released “Surf’s Up” based on Sony Pictures Animation’s feature-length CGI film. Currently, Gilles is spearheading the motion capture on the next chapter of one of Ubisoft’s AAA video game projects.

Gilles has deep experience in both television and film animation. Prior to switching over to video games, Gilles was an overseas animation director for H2V Entertainment. Prior to H2V Gilles worked at Cine-Groupe on productions for stations Teletoon, PBS Kids and Fox Family Kids. At Cine-Groupe Gilles contributed to shows including Sagwa the Chinese Cat, What’s With Andy and Kids from Room 402. Gilles attended Sheridan College for classical animation.

John Gaudiosi has been covering the world of interactive entertainment for the past 14 years for outlets like the Washington Post, Wired magazine, Playboy magazine, Yahoo! Games, AOL Games, ESPN.com and PlayStation.com. He's the videogame reporter for The Hollywood Reporter and he specializes in the convergence of Hollywood and interactive entertainment.

Amanda Goodfried is the Supervising Producer of the internet video series Lonelygirl15. In this capacity, she oversees all aspects of physical production including location scouting, cast and crew scheduling, set design, props, and line production. She is also Co-Executive Producer of Lonelygirl15 presents...KateModern, the spinoff of the popular ongoing interactive drama set to launch in July on Bebo.com. Prior to joining Lonelygirl15, Ms. Goodfried, an attorney, worked in the business affairs department at the Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in Beverly Hills, a Hollywood talent agency.

Amanda Goodfried received a B.A. in Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley and a J.D. from the University of Miami. Prior to working at CAA, she was an agent trainee at Abrams Artists Agency, and worked at several production companies and in the LA County District Attorney's Office. She is married to Greg Goodfried, an Executive Producer of Lonelygirl15 and Lonelygirl15 presents... KateModern and Founder/Co-President of Telegraph Ave. Productions.

Geoff Keighley can justly lay claim to the title, “dean of the gaming press.” A contributing writer to Entertainment Weekly and Business 2.0, Keighley has spent the last fourteen years—half his life—covering the videogame industry as a reviewer, business reporter, and television correspondent. On TV he is the host of SpikeTV's Game Head, the #1-rated show about videogames on television.  He also appears as a videogame expert on the entertainment newsmagazine Extra (NBC/Syndicated) and hosts MTV GameTrailers.com’s Bonus Round.  No journalist has done more to explore and explain how this booming business actually works, and to hold it accountable for its misfires. In June 2004 he was named one of the Top 30 business journalists under 30 by NewsBios for his work in a diverse range of media outlets such as USA Today, NPR, The Los Angeles Times, and the CBS Evening News.

Andy Reif is the league commissioner of the Championship Gaming SeriesTM (CGS), the first global professional gaming league in history. Reif  serves as chief executive, overseeing the establishment of the league and its development in North America, South America, UK/Europe and Asia/Australia. Reif joined CGS from the AVP Pro Beach Volleyball Tour, where he most recently served as chief operating officer.

Cryptic Studios is the product of Michael Lewis' passion for gaming and technology. In 2000, Michael funded Cryptic and assembled its highly talented management team. Under Michael's leadership, Cryptic launched City of Heroes and City of Villains, and is currently a profitable studio with multiple projects, including Marvel Universe Online.

Kim holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from the University of Manchester UK.

Yuri Lowenthal is an actor who has extensive experience in voicing characters from film, animations, and videogames. He has worked on such anime franchises as Naruto and Teen Titans, as well as in television roles for Gilmore Girls and Alias. His portfolio of videogame work extends to titles such as Call of Duty 2, Final Fantasy XII, and the Prince of Persia series. In addition to his acting, he is a playwright and has founded an independent film production company, Monkey Kingdom Productions. He is a practitioner of the martial art Wu Shu and speaks Japanese, French, and German.

With seven years of experience in the production of video games and a lifetime of passion under his belt, Ben Mattes is a Producer at Ubisoft Montreal, one of the largest development studios in the world. In his two years at Ubisoft he has overseen the production of Prince Of Persia: The Two Thrones as well as the port to the PSP and Wii Rival Swords. Prior to joining Ubisoft Ben worked in the wireless gaming space in a variety of production management roles. He is currently working on an unannounced next-gen title and is anxiously awaiting the day when he can talk more about it.

Gina McIntyre is managing editor, features, for The Hollywood Reporter, where she has specialized in film coverage since joining the staff in 2000. In addition to editing stand-alone issues on the Cannes Film Festival and the American Film Market, she writes about independent cinema, entertainment finance and oversees the paper's Oscar Watch series. She has also written for Premiere magazine, the Stanford Business Journal and the Chicago Tribune.

Jordan Mechner is one of the videogame industry's most respected creators. His titles, including Karateka, The Last Express, and the Prince of Persia franchise, have sold millions of copies and received worldwide critical acclaim. He is the writer-director of two award-winning short films, Waiting for Dark and Chavez Ravine: A Los Angeles Story. Mechner received his B.A. from Yale University.

Jamil Moledina is the executive director of the Game Developers Conference, the largest game industry-only event in the world, and is responsible for the business, production, marketing, sales, and content of the show.  He manages the selection of sessions, secures and develops the keynotes, builds the networking events, and ensures the overall quality and integrity of the attendee/vendor experience at GDC.  He was previously editor-in-chief of Game Developer magazine, managing the editorial direction of and developing features for the industry-leading publication.  Jamil found his way to the game industry via a roundabout route including tech business consulting, film commentary, and corporate law, but is a lifelong gamer and science fiction fan.

After receiving an MFA from USC’s Cinema Writing Program, Flint Dille established himself as an animation writer and producer on programs such as Transformers and G.I. Joe. During the course, Flint wrote the Tiny Toon Movie and the feature-film American Tail II: Fieval Goes West for Steven Spielberg. Later, Flint and John Platten sold Backwater to Dimension as a film. It was shot in Fall of 2005 as Venom. Flint was also the creative director of TSR-LA and worked on numerous Dungeons & Dragons projects along with the award winning board games Line in the Sand and XXVc: Battle for the Future.

As Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.s vice president of game design, Rob Pardo is dedicated to ensuring that each Blizzard Entertainment title offers the high-quality entertainment experience that the company has built its reputation on. Leading a group of talented and highly experienced development teams, Pardo supervises the overall design and implementation of game-play features for every Blizzard game, including World of Warcraft, the world’s most popular subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game.

Pardo has been contributing to the success of Blizzard’s games since 1997, when he joined the company as a designer and strike-team member on the real-time strategy game StarCraft. When Blizzard decided to develop an expansion set for StarCraft, Pardo was named lead designer on that project. With his direction on game design, StarCraft: Brood War™ became one of the most critically acclaimed add-on products ever created. Following the worldwide success of StarCraft and StarCraft: Brood War, Pardo went on to oversee the design of another Blizzard best-seller, Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos™,as well as its expansion set, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne™. Both products received high critical scores from players and game-industry publications alike, in addition to becoming Blizzard’s seventh and eighth titles to achieve more than a million copies in sales.

From there, Pardo moved into his current position as vice president of game design. In this role, he has led the design for World of Warcraft while continuing to supervise the progress of Blizzard’s PC and console titles in development. The next Blizzard title to reach players under Pardo’s leadership will be the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion set, World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade™. Pardo earned a bachelor of arts degree in criminology, law, and society from the University of California--Irvine in 1996.

Todd Pilger is Head of 3D Visual Development for Sony Pictures Animation (SPA). With over 14 years in Visual FX and Feature Animation, 10 of which with Sony Pictures Imageworks (SPI) and SPA, Todd utilizes his broad range of technical and artistic skills to craft a unique look for SPA films. As an avid gamer since his first Atari 2600, he employs his years spent with a controller in hand to consult on all SPA based video games. His film credits include: Starship Troopers, As Good As It Gets, Stuart Little 1 & 2, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Castaway, What Lies Beneath, Haunted Mansion, Open Season and Surf's Up. Sony Pictures Animation and Sony Pictures Imageworks are both part of Sony Pictures Digital Entertainment.