The People Behind Unity
David Helgason
CEO and co-founder (Icelandic)
david@unity3d.comIT entrepreneur, software developer, and student of subjects as diverse as physics and Arabic, David work is about driving Unity Technologies to the top. In the past he created and participated in multiple startups in areas such as early news & community integration, music distribution, data integration, and consulting. David serves on the boards of several games and technology startups.
Nicholas Francis
User Experience and co-founder (Danish-English)
nicholas@unity3d.comNicholas has extensive production experience from the film industry and has written and directed seven movies, including the largest Danish independent movie production. He has a broad background with 5 years in the Danish film industry and 7 years of 3D-graphics programming experience.
His previous industry experience includes designing and implementing production management tools for one of Scandinavia's largest game development studios, Deadline Games.
Sten Selander
COO (Swedish)
sten@unity3d.comSten is the co-founder of several companies within the interactive media space, and is experienced in business development services and handling diligence and strategies on management level. Additionally he's managed large scale EU projects and been responsible for innovations processes between digital industry and research.
Sam Kalman
Director of Quality Assurance (USA)
sam@unity3d.comBorn and raised in Seattle, Washington, Sam first became a professional tester in 2001 as part of the Xbox Compliance Team. He specializes in a testing approach called Session-Based Testing. He first got involved with Unity as a user and a volunteer documentation writer. He has loved games since he was old enough to use an NES controller, and actively uses Unity for his own pet projects. He greatly enjoys the supportive and international elements of the community, and gets excited each time he sees a new Unity project mentioned on the forum. Sam is currently based in Copenhagen.
Valdemar Bučilko
Wii Hero (Lithuanian)
Valdemar works on Unity's Nintendo Wii runtime. His background is in game development, and the European demoscene.
Renaldas Zioma
iPhone Developer (Lithuanian)
Renaldas' passion is getting code screaming fast on interesting devices, such as the PSP, the PS3, and now the iPhone. His previous job was coding on Battlefield in Stockholm, and he's now relocated to Copenhagen.
Joachim Ante
CTO and co-founder (German)
joe@unity3d.comJoachim is the co-creator of Unity and leads the development effort. In his spare time, Joe enjoys horseback riding, acrobatics, diving from bridges, and driving big cars.
Tom Higgins
Product Evangelist (USA)
tom@unity3d.comTom's experience with computers started at a young age when his parents purchased an Apple II+ for their home, setting into motion a passion for computers and software development. That passion found an outlet when he was hired by Macromedia. After nearly a decade working on Director and Shockwave Player, Tom has now joined the Unity team.
When not at work, you'll find him on the road traveling or at the track racing motorcycles. Tom is based in San Francisco.
Aras Pranckevičius
Code Chef (Lithuanian)
aras@unity3d.comAras cooks code, specializing in rendering and Windows-related things. Aras is one of a select few people awarded by Microsoft as a Most Valuable Professional in the area of DirectX. He has published several articles in the books ShaderX3 and ShaderX4.
Lárus Ólafsson
Network Programmer (Icelandic)
Lárus specializes in multiplayer networking, encompassing everything from NAT punchthrough to MMO scalability. He finished his Master's Thesis implementing and describing Unity's multiplayer components.
Rytis Bieliūnas
Windows Developer (Lithuanian)
Just loves programming. Started his career at his mother's workplace (which was the only place where he had access to a computer).
Ethan Vosburgh
Asset Maestro (USA)
Ethan has worked on all current Unity demos and is now working on an internal project. He holds a fine arts degree in Digital Media from the San Francisco Art Institute. As an undergraduate he studied generative art as well as 3D modeling/animation at Pixar University. He was also involved in San Francisco's emerging VJ scene in the late 90s.
Søren Christiansen
Secret Developer (Danish)
Søren is working on a top secret project. Watch this spot.
Unity Studios
Unity Studios is our professional services division. They do high-quality and high-profile client work to spread the word and the web-player installs.
Allan Kirkeby
Studio Director (Danish)
allan@unity3d.comAllan Kirkeby was producer of over 80 computer games and game-like projects in his last position as lead producer at InterActive Vision. He is now lead producer of Unity Studios, and handles contracting projects in support of companies using Unity for a variety of projects.
Jan Roed Thastum
Art Director / Game Artist (Danish)
Jan is the former art director and co-founder of Aarhus-based MMO company Runestone Game Development. He's been doing illustration, graphic design and motion graphics full time since way back in the last century. In the future he would like to: make a short films staring obese women and trampolines, build his very own World War 1 trench-warfare MMO, and eventually move to the expert level in Guitar Hero 3 without breaking his fingers.
Thomas Alling Coverdale Kofoed
Game Artist (Danish)
He worked as a 3D Artist Environmental/level Designer on the MMORPG "Seed". Before that he was a snowboard-instructor-turned-demo-GFX artist When AFK Thomas spent his time with his wife and two kids, or in Deep Dark Realms of Table Top D&D, or can be found at the waters around Aarhus, Kite Surfing.
Tore Sønberg Madsen
Game Programmer (Danish)
Tore is a 2007 graduate in Multimedia & Game Programming from University of Aarhus. Tore's had a desire to create games since he was 10 years old, and has been an avid gamer even longer. He excels at the combination of understanding of games and game theory, and posseses practical skills in the technical and aesthetic areas of game development. Tore plans his position at Unity Studios to be beginning of a lifelong career in games.
Preben Thaysen
Game Programmer (Danish)
Preben has a bachelors degree in Medialogy, and has studied Media Technology and Games at the IT University of Copenhagen. Relocated to Aarhus to join Unity Studios, and hasn't regretted that for one second. When not working, he enjoys watching movies, playing games, and spending time with his family.
Lars "Kroll" Kristensen
Technical Director (Danish)
kroll@unity3d.comLars "Kroll" Kristensen co-founded and led the Aarhus based MMO company Runestone Game Development. Runestone developed, launched and operated the non-violent, RPG-focused MMO "Seed". Lars holds a masters degree in computer science, and has a strong multimedia and gaming background. He has been playing pen and paper role playing games since the mid-eighties.
When not making games, Lars enjoys watching movies, playing role-playing and computer games, and spending time with his wife and daughter.
Søren Fruergaard Andersen
Game Programmer (Danish)
Søren works as a game programmer in support of projects for our customers.
Bernardino Barazon
Game Programmer (Spanish)
Bernardino has 15 years experience as graphic artist, which he augmented with a degree in Industrial and Electronics Engineering, and a Master in Computer Science. He has combined the vocation of Fine Arts with solid technical training, which he now uses to maximum effect as Games Programmer.
Carsten Bak Larsen
Graphics Programmer (Danish)
Carsten has a bachelor's degree in Computer Science, and ten years of experience doing ordinary, boring programming. He has spent over 20 years (since the Memotech computer) doing games as a hobby, and is interested in all the more technical aspects of game programming.
Outside of work, Carsten is a part-time clairvoyant and therapist, sings, and occasionally composes poetry and music.
Jonas Ecterhof
System Programmer (German)
Jonas is an old-car fanatic, developer of several popular racing games, and has worked on several core parts of Unity over the years.
