Login Conference

Advisory Team

Cynthia Freese

Head Advisor

Cynthia Freese is the Co – Founder and CEO of Evergreen Events Inc, where she has spent the past five years as the of the Executive Director of Login Conference. Prior to her founding of Evergreen Events, Cynthia was the Event Director at The Game Initiative, where she grew the Game Initiative’s conferences to include small, focused events with a unique focus. Cynthia was the creator and manager of the 2005 Casual Games Conference in Seattle. This successful conference allowed the game industry to focus on a new perspective in the industry. She was also the Conference Director of the 2005 Austin Game Conference, Women’s Game Conference and Writers Game Conference in Austin, Texas, all of which had record attendance in 2005. In addition to her work on innovative conferences, Cynthia also focused on the Breaking In To the Game Industry events as well as helping to organize and attain industry speakers for middle school Career Days around the country. Cynthia likes to be thought of as a bridge between groups and believes that by working together we will all be better off in the long run.



Peter Freese

Peter Freese is an entrepreneur, programmer, and visionary/co-creator of the LOGIN Conference. Peter has been making games professionally for nearly 20 years and has founded several games studios. Peter is an advocate for shared technology, and was previously Core Technology Director for NCsoft. His experience with online games ranges from first-person shooters to MMORPGS. Titles Peter has contributed to include Blood, Gabriel Knight 3, Ultima Online 2, Tabula Rasa, Auto Assault, and Counter-Strike: Source.



Robert Simon

Robert Simon is a general partner of Ariva Partners, a venture capital firm located in San Francisco. He has 21 years experience working with and founding software development and Internet companies. Prior to Ariva, he was a General Partner at Alta Partners where he led investments in early stage companies in the software, enterprise software, network security and wireless sectors. Prior to joining Alta, Robert was a venture partner at Sierra Ventures and while there, founded DotBank.com, a person to person payment system for the Internet, acquired by Yahoo. Mr. Simon was the co-founder of Navitel Communications, co-developer with Microsoft in creating software for screen telephones and acquired by Spyglass. Prior to Navitel, he founded Virgil Corporation, which provided financial information and software applications to personal investors over the Internet. Mr. Simon was the Director of Lotus West for Lotus Development Corporation after they purchased PS Publishing, a graphics software company that he founded in 1989. Mr. Simon holds a Bachelors and Masters degree in engineering from Stanford University.



Robert Ferrari

Robert Ferrari serves as CEO and Founder of Bare Tree Media. Based in Boston MA the company connects consumers to their favorite brands, characters and celebrities through fun and engaging interactive entertainment. Through it’s digital publishing platform Bare Tree Media creates and distributes branded digital content across mobile, social, online, connected console and i-TV platforms. The company’s branded digital portfolio includes Hallmark’s Hoops & Yoyo, Sanrio’s Hello Kitty, Benton Art’s It’s Happy Bunny, Charuca, Skelanimals, Smiley World and Stoopid Monkey. Robert previously served as Global VP Publishing & Business Development at Sanrio Digital, driving the creation, marketing and publishing of interactive entertainment based on the Hello Kitty property. He also served as VP Global Business Development at Turbine (now part of WB Games) where he advanced the companies global partnerships related to the launch of Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons & Dragons Online, and Asheron’s Call titles within the companies portfolio of online game properties. Robert is a high profile speaker within the online games, social and mobile conference circuit, and currently serves on the advisory boards of MIT NE Game SIG, Mass Technology Leadership Counsel Games & Entertainment, and Mass Digi.



Geoffrey Zatkin

Geoffrey “GZ” Zatkin is President and COO of EEDAR, the video game industry’s premier research and business-intelligence firm.  Mr. Zatkin co-founded EEDAR in 2006 with the goal of increasing video game industry profitability through disruptive, data and technology driven research services.

In 2009, Forbes magazine recognized EEDAR as one of the twenty most promising companies in America.  EEDAR holds the Guinness World Record for the largest active database of video game information.

With over 16 years of experience in video game development, tools and analytics, Mr. Zatkin is known for his ability to deconstruct the complex into actionable products and services.  Mr. Zatkin directs development of EEDAR’s product and service infrastructure.

Prior to his work with EEDAR, Mr. Zatkin had over a decade’s worth of video game industry experience, having performed in senior design roles for international corporate conglomerates and independent development studios. Geoffrey was an integral part of the original EverQuest design team and helped pioneer the rise of MMO games.

Geoffrey has a background is in psychology, video games and pop culture, and lives in San Diego with his wife and two cats.



Steven Klebe

Steve is Head of Business Development, Consumer Payments for Google. He has over 30 years of experience in sales, business development, and strategic alliances in electronic payments, authentication and fraud prevention.  He has worked in senior management roles at; VeriFone, CyberCash, CyberSource,  PassMark Security (acquired by RSA/EMC) and BilltoMobile. He was responsible for a wide variety of partnerships with companies such as First Data and Visa including the original equity investment by Visa in CyberSource and the co-branded product – the CyberSource Advanced Fraud Screen enhanced by Visa. He was on the board of directors of the Electronic Transactions Association (www.electran.org) and is on a variety of advisory boards. Steve has spoken at over 50 conferences during his career.