Marie-Claire Isaaman is on a mission to make the games industry fair, inclusive and diverse. As the CEO of not-for-profit organisation Women in Games, she lives and breathes the issue every day.
Despite 50% of all players being female, only 23% of people working in the video games sector are women. And in a scorecard by 20-First among the top 14 games companies, they make up just 16% of executives.
Now, in recognition of the role Marie-Claire has played as an activist and advocate, the University has awarded her the title of Honorary Doctor of Technology.
Growing up in Norfolk, she loved playing arcade games and board games. But it wasn’t until she gave birth to her son that she developed an interest in video games. Back then, Marie-Claire was teaching drawing at Norwich University of the Arts. She began exploring how traditional drawing techniques were important to new technologies for drawing, including games software.
In 2006 She was asked to step in and run a struggling games-related course for a year. Within 10 years, she had transformed the Games Art & Design BA and MA programmes at Norwich,
from having no female students or staff on the programmes to having a 60-40 male-female ratio among students and 50-50 among staff. Placing gender equality at the heart of the curriculum was a key factor in the changes.
Education is still very close to her heart through her work with Women in Games. As Education Ambassadors She hopes Staffordshire University staff and students will be active participants and join its events, initiatives and activities in future.
Marie-Claire became CEO of Women in Games back in 2016, transforming a tiny volunteer-run organisation into a global force for change.
It has since grown into an eco-system of 2,000 ambassadors in 77 countries, 50 corporate ambassadors and a growing list of education ambassadors. The purpose of Women in Games is to empower girls and women by building a fairer, safer, more equal global gaming ecosystem. And supporting women at every stage of their careers, building opportunities and striving for gender equality across the video games sector.
In her role as CEO, Marie-Claire works with some of the world’s leading games studios, such as Warner Brothers, Technicolor, Ubisoft and Rockstar, along with tech companies like Amazon, Google and Meta.
In 2022, she co-authored the Women in Games Guide: Building a Fair Playing Field – the first of its kind in the games industry. Women in Games also launched a Women in Games Manifesto in 2023 outlining the purpose of the organisation and 14 reasons to support the work of the organisation. .
In recent years, Marie-Claire and Women in Games has won a string of awards, including the MCV DEVELOP Women in Games Outstanding Achievement Award 2022 and the Silver Stevie Award in the Female Executive of the Year Non-Profit category in 2023. And very recently the MCV Develop Award for Best Event of the Year 2024.
In May 2024, she was invited by the King and Queen to attend the inaugural Creative Industries Garden Party at Buckingham Palace.
She also chairs FutureWorks, Manchester Industry Liaison Group, and is a trustee of the British Games Institute and National Video Games Museum, as well as the Open College of the Arts/Open University.
Marie-Claire is a board member of The EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Intelligent Games and Game Intelligence (iGGi) and was recently appointed to the Geena Davis Institute Advisory Council.
This award recognises her work as a beacon of leadership and innovation in the gaming industry. She has dismantled barriers and fostered a more inclusive community, where diverse voices are heard and valued.