Voting for Imirt's new board members is now open and will take place until midnight on Monday the 9th of December. Details of how to vote and links needed to vote will be sent to members by email.
This year, we will once again be using OpaVote. This system ensures a secure and unbiased voting process. (make sure the email address for noreply@opavote.com is in your contacts so it’s not sent to your spam folder)
There are 3 seats open this year, with Craig Stephens and Patrick O’Donnell stepping down from the Board.
We’d like to thank Craig and Patrick for their time on the board. Their service and expertise has been invaluable to IMIRT over the last two years. A special thanks to Craig Stephens, who served on the board for 4 years, and we cannot thank him enough for all the work he has done.
An email has been sent out to all active subscribers with an OpaVote link. Voting will be open until Tuesday the 10th of December.
Best of luck to all our candidates!
The Candidates
Craig Walsh
Craig Walsh is an independent computer game developer and writer based in Galway. A graduate of Pulse College Galway, and a volunteer with Galway Game Jam, as well as a contributor to the IMIRT monthly newsletter, Craig is determined to help the passionate, local, grassroots developers and teams to help bring the Irish Game Development Industry to the next level.
My goals are simple but not easy; a lot of talk has been going on over the last year and a half about building locally, getting government attention, funding from national bodies, about attracting the bigger players to the scene here to have a more robust industry. While I agree and understand that approach, and it has paid off in so many great ways thanks to Screen Ireland, Ardán, Northern Ireland Screen, and of course IMIRT, I, personally, would like to work for the local developers.
Because while some parties/organisations were waiting for the "right time" to get involved with games development here, the local developers were volunteering their free time, their weekends, their days off, to grow communities here.
Galway Game Jam, The Games Co-Op, Northern Ireland Game Dev, Cork Game Dev Group, Cats Making Games (Kilkenny), Game Craft, and the founders, members, and board members of IMIRT are the people I want to work for, to strive for. The people who put so much hard work in not knowing if it would ever work out because they do it for the passion, the community, and for themselves most of all. Because for these people, making games is a way of life. I hope to make that way of life easier to make a career.
First goal, and most important/critical, to get an Irish made game Steam Festival going on around St.Patrick's Day. The whole world turns green, the publicity would be phenomenal for our local businesses, from indies dev all the way to corporate producers. GDC is also during this time period in 2025, so it has incredible potential to tranform the scene here.
Secondly, work with more local conventions/events to get Irish made games in front of the Irish public. Gamerfest has done a phenomenal job supporting game makers from all areas, professionals to hobbyists to people still in education. IMIRT could sponsor these events and get discounted tickets/prices for tables, helping the membership have more value. IMIRT has already done this with events like Gamerfest, so widening the pool of events should work out smoothly (hopefully).
Thirdly (and this would most likely be further in the future), "IMIRT-Fest." Or "IMIRT-Con." The name can use some work, but what this would be is essentially an event over a day/weekend where IMIRT members specifically show off their games to the public. Founded, organised, and funded by IMIRT, to once again offer their members a place they can interact with the Irish public.
Robert Emerson
Rob is a Talent Acquisition & CSR Specialist at Black Shamrock - A Virtuos Studio, with a background in floristry and horticulture. While pursuing a degree in Human Resources Management, he interned at Black Shamrock, where he discovered a gap between university training and industry needs. This led to the creation of Black Shamrock's educational outreach programme, which Rob has led for three years.
Through this programme, Rob has worked with thousands of students across various levels, developed the Black Shamrock Scholarship Programme, and partnered with universities to make courses more industry-relevant. He's a strong advocate for diversity, organizing events like the annual International Women's Day talks in partnership with other studios across the country.
Rob was instrumental in securing the first D&I award for any game studios in Ireland at Black Shamrock, earning accreditation with the Irish Centre for Diversity. He also recently began teaching at Pulse College, guiding future game developers on industry structures, hiring processes, and job application strategies.
In his Talent Acquisition role, Rob has met many of you and often brings good news. He specializes in international relocation and work permits, helping Ireland attract top talent to grow the industry.
I don't tend to mince words when it comes to this sort of thing. Imirt and the wider industry in Ireland face a lot of issues at this moment in time. If elected to the board, I will;
Partner with other members of the Imirt board to overhaul Imirt-run educational workshops.
Continue from a new platform my work of partnering with universities to get courses changed to align closer to what the industry actually needs, increasing graduate employability.
Publish a report on the skills gaps present in Ireland that are affecting the ability of Irish game studios to grow.
Lobby the Department of Enterprise to add games-related jobs to the Critical Skills List, enabling easier access to the skills this industry needs to expand both in Ireland and internationally.
Assess the possibility and funding of an Imirt-led scholarship programme for undergraduate students.
Lobby Screen Ireland for greater involvement in the games industry as the government agency with responsibility for such.
Assist with securing funding for developers based in Ireland to attend both Gamescom and Develop.
Lobby Imirt to implement corporate memberships for any interested Irish games studio.
Reimplement the taking and sharing of minutes at Imirt board meetings, increasing transparency for members.
Ireland today finds itself in the same position Sweden found itself in a number of years ago, an industry forever poised to take off. Help me to light the match and help this industry take off.
Do hard things. Put in the work.
Noreen Lynch
Noreen Lynch is a senior tax manager at PwC and an active member of the Imirt Digital Games Tax Credit (DGTC) Working Group. Noreen is an advocate of the need to enhance Ireland's DGTC to encourage innovation, increase investment in the Irish digital gaming sector, contribute to Irish economic growth and create high quality employment opportunities. She is a fellow of Chartered Accountants Ireland and an associate of the Irish Taxation Institute with over 15 years' professional experience working in both London and Ireland supporting her clients, both large and small, to navigate the complex everchanging tax landscape. Noreen has good links with the Department of Finance and has worked on various submissions to the Department over the years, including the Imirt pre-budget 2025 submission.
What Noreen hopes to achieve
Support Imirt in improving the games development eco-system in Ireland
Continue working with Imirt and the Department of Finance to bring about much needed enhancements to the DGTC in Budget 2026
Engage with the industry, policymakers, Enterprise Ireland, Screen Ireland and the IDA to put Ireland firmly on the map as a global games hub
Sylvain Doreau
I’m an industry veteran with 30 years of experience in games and animation. I’m currently Sr Director of Creative dev at 2K games in Dublin. After studying Art & Film and spending the early part of my career in France, I moved to Northern California in 1996 with an opportunity to work for Dreamworks Animation, on Antz and Academy award winner Shrek. Then I moved from animation to work on AAA games at the EA Redwood Shores HQ. The next chapter was with ILM/Lucasfilm, to work on animated TV series and films, as games with LucasArts, I had the unique opportunity to directly collaborate with George Lucas on feature films as on Emmy award-winning animated series. With ILM R&D, I contributed to developing innovative real-time-based previs processes.
I then moved to Los Angeles in 2010 to work for Activision Publishing in Santa Monica. There, I was the head of cinematics productions, supporting the worldwide studios, contributing to 20 AAA games, directing cinematics and managing outsourcing studios for the mega-franchises such as Call of Duty, Skylanders, Destiny, until 2017. I kept directing cinematics and trailers with my own production company Spacecargo for Ubisoft, Warner, HBO Interactive, Axis before moving to Dublin in 2018 to work for Hasbro animation at Boulder Media. I recently was Executive Creative Director at Virtuos, and Technicolor Games where I led their India studio, as managing distributed teams Art teams in Asia, Europe and North America.
WHAT I HOPE TO ACHIEVE (AND WILL FIGHT FOR)
I’d like to focus on what I’m familiar with: Craft excellence. I’d like to target few well defined areas of improvement and help the Irish games industry to upskill and gain maturity.
Identify and reduce the games skills gap between Ireland and other EU nations - As a hiring manager in Ireland, this is one of my main concerns I’ve been struggling with: France has amazing animation & games schools. Artists, Designers, Animators are production-ready and fully employable before they graduate. Germany, Holland are strong too, Spain’s also catching up fast.
None of our schools offers a five-year program with a preparation/leveling year, students are not production ready, and we have very low international attractivity for foreign students. We are not UA5 proficient in our schools, game programs are very “generalist” and don’t offer full game art courses.
Animation and VFX had gained more maturity in Ireland over the last 10 year (VFX over the last 5), games are still unfortunately trailing behind. We need to identify what is missing, work with schools on specialized games Art curriculum and lobby with the government (Screen Ireland/Skillnet) to have the same training support for games than Animation and recently VFX had: There is currently a National Talent Academy for Animation and VFX, but not for games … let’s work on this!
Gain more international exposure - Work with government agencies (IDA/Enterprise Ireland), to promote our industry, tax credit, and quality of life to foreign publishers and developers: Create and promote success stories.
Developing the ecosystem upwards - As I mentioned in my bio, I have years of experience with large publishers and dev studios, as on the Games service side. So, how could we become more attractive to mid to large foreign publishers and developers, as with service studios, and have several major industry actors building outposts, publishing offices, and development studios in Ireland? People can Fly moving here is a great story, Black Shamrock story’s also successful, Romero is a landmark, but what is the multiplier, and formula to expand our growth? That’s what I’d like to investigate and improve.
Cross pollination with the Animation/VFX industries - The ecosystem also needs to expand locally and horizontally, by creating a pool of cross over artists who could work with dev studios, animation studios, and VFX. There’s a convergence around Unreal workflows that is favorable, but training needs to catch up alongside education. Again, it’s all tied with education and training, we need to work with Animation Ireland/Skillnet/government agencies on game animation and VFX education, as high end Game Design courses.
Promoting Irish games in industry events: Aim big, but also starts locally - We, of course, have to be present at major events like GDC, Gamescom, XDS, but also need to have a strong insular presence, as in the UK. There was a strong IMIRT presence at NEXUS this year, next year it’ll become bigger and more European, it needs to become our GDC! Render festival in Belfast is to be also interesting, as Develop Brighton. On the Animation side, I’ll be Jurying again the game sting awards at the Dingle animation festival, and this year we created a new game trailers competition that will draw foreign entries and attention to our industry.
It takes a village!
Elaine Dowman
Elaine has built a dynamic career across the entertainment, sports, and games & creative industries. She currently leads a dedicated team at Barclays, focusing on how the bank can best support the UK’s games and creative sectors, driving growth beyond traditional banking services.
Elaine spearheads a range of initiatives, including Demo Days, Expos, Accelerator programs, and Awards, all designed to foster the growth of the UK games industry. She is passionate about the creativity and innovation inherent in games businesses and dedicates much of her time to supporting indie developers by providing mentoring, facilitating introductions, and creating opportunities for them to showcase their games.
Her commitment to fostering a more inclusive gaming ecosystem is evident through her active work in promoting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) initiatives within the industry. Elaine also fundraises for SpecialEffect, a charity dedicated to making gaming accessible to people with physical disabilities.
Elaine is a strong advocate for the Irish games industry and recently hosted Nexus, Ireland’s biggest B2B games industry event. She has also served as a non-executive board member of a game studio, bringing strategic insight and industry expertise to her role.
What I hope to achieve
Use my years of experience supporting indie businesses in the UK to help IMIRT create the right support and initiatives for Irish indie studios to succeed.
Work with key partners like the IDA and Enterprise Ireland to secure more opportunities for Irish studios to gain representation at international events.
Apply insights from working with the UK games trade body, UKIE, to develop actions that spotlight and support Irish studios.
Help position Ireland as a global hub for high-quality education and training in game development.
Support IMIRT in advancing DE&I initiatives to ensure equal opportunities for all Irish studios.
Leverage my international network of publishers, investors, and industry partners to give Irish indie studios greater exposure.
John Burke
John is a senior tax manager at Forvis Mazars specializing in innovation incentives, including the R&D Tax Credit and the Digital Gaming Tax Credit (DGTC). Over the past few years, John has worked closely with government agencies, including the Department of Finance, advocating for revisions to the DGTC legislation to ensure its viability and accessibility for Irish game developers. His extensive knowledge of tax incentives and dedication to resolving legislative roadblocks demonstrate his commitment to unlocking the potential of the DGTC as a transformative tool for the Irish gaming industry.
John’s experience positions him as a unique advocate for the gaming community, bridging the gap between developers and policymakers. By leveraging his expertise in tax incentives, John aims to help Irish game creators navigate financial opportunities, empowering studios of all sizes to grow and thrive.
What I Hope to Achieve
If elected to the Imirt Board, I will:
Act as a liaison between the Irish games industry and government stakeholders to advocate for policy improvements and streamlined processes for the Digital Gaming Tax Credit (DGTC).
Work to ensure that the DGTC becomes a widely accessible and effective incentive, enabling Irish game developers to compete on a global stage.
Support Imirt's mission to strengthen the Irish gaming industry by promoting collaboration between creators, policymakers, and investors.
Advocate for broader funding opportunities and innovation incentives to bolster the growth of both indigenous studios and international game development in Ireland.
I believe in the incredible talent and potential within the Irish gaming community, and I am committed to helping create an environment where developers can flourish. With a strong focus on actionable solutions, I look forward to contributing to Imirt's vision for a thriving, inclusive, and innovative industry.