Leadership
Tim Zuckert / President and CEO
Tim Zuckert is President and C.E.O. of Shift Control Media, a branded-entertainment company that creates original brandworthy games for innovative marketers. Based on his work with such blue chip advertisers as Pepsi, Frito Lay and Hershey Foods, Tim identified a market opportunity to leverage the popularity and pervasiveness of games to help brands connect with consumers in new and increasingly relevant ways. To achieve this, Tim built an organization with a unique blend of game industry authenticity and brand marketing expertise.
Prior to founding Shift Control, Tim was President of Omnicom Group’s TracyLocke, an integrated marketing agency that provided strategic marketing communications to a range of clients in such categories as consumer products, apparel and beverages. Tim came to TracyLocke from the client side, where he held senior marketing positions with such major global marketers as Apple Computer, The Walt Disney Company and The Virgin Group.
A graduate of the Kellogg School, where he earned his M.B.A., Tim has successfully balanced the demands of creating and executing strategic marketing plans for a host of media and entertainment brands with the operational skills of managing and motivating effective sales and marketing teams in both creative and brand management. In founding Shift Control, Tim’s goal was to deliver compelling gameplay value to consumers while helping marketers tap the popularity, active attention and viral nature of a relatively untapped platform. The company is collaborating closely with the growing community of game developers who are interested in alternative funding and distribution sources for their creative ideas.
Mark Findlay / Chief Operating Officer
As Chief Operating Officer, Shift Control co-founder Mark Findlay is responsible for all of the company’s operations and financial planning, including heading up IP negotiations and establishing its game development business practices. He’s based in the company’s Vancouver, BC office, located in the heart of the game industry’s version of Silicon Valley. A longtime veteran of one of the industry’s biggest global players, Mark was Director of Business and Strategic Planning for Electronic Arts prior to co-founding Shift Control.
Mark’s experience encompasses key elements of the game development process. At EA he led planning and strategic analysis for the company’s network of product development studios worldwide and took part in some of its major acquisitions of intellectual property, leading the team that negotiated licensing rights to the Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and James Bond franchises. He also served in senior financial planning and strategic analysis roles for game software companies and consulting firms. A native Canadian, Mark holds an M.B.A. from the Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario.
Mark’s dual expertise in financial management and operations provides the perfect complement to the brand planning and marketing credentials of his Shift Control co-founders, Timothy Zuckert and Frank Sanni, who spent years on both the client and ad agency sides of the business. His experience in working with major publishers and content providers in areas of corporate growth, financial management and strategic analysis provides Shift Control with the tools to develop innovative new ways to bring games to the public, as well as help marketers tap the allure of games for their branding and marketing initiatives.
Frank Sanni / Director of Strategic Planning
Frank Sanni brings an account planner’s intuitive understanding of consumer re-sponse to brands and marketing, as well as an acute analytical perspective on category and marketplace dynamics, to his role as Director of Strategic Planning for Shift Control Media. A graduate of Tufts University with over twelve-years of experience in the marketing industry, Frank’s background spans advertising, integrated marketing and consulting, having held senior planning roles in everything from creative boutiques to global network agencies.
Frank’s agency experience includes work at Havas’ Euro RSCG, IPG’s creative hothouse Amster Yard and the New York boutique DiNoto Lee, in addition to helping establish the planning discipline in the Connecticut office of Omnicom’s TracyLocke. Frank further honed his planning skills as a managing director with consulting group Fusion 5, where he planned and executed brand planning, marketing innovation and product development projects for a range of global clients. His category experience ranges from packaged goods to financial services, and includes such brands as Electronic Arts, Bacardi, Daimler-Chrysler, Gillette, Pepsi, Frito-Lay and Nestle.
At Shift Control Media, Frank combines his skills as a planner with his first-hand perspective as a gamer, to drive the creative process in a Brandworthy direction—ensuring the delivery of truly enjoyable games that also effectively and efficiently fulfill marketing objectives for brands. He also provides clients with the insight and guidance necessary to successfully navigate within the broader space of interactive and emerging media.
Adrian Crook / Creative Director
During his 14-year career, Adrian has produced more than a dozen products across numerous platforms, ranging from Sega Genesis and SNES to PlayStation, PS2, PC, Web and Xbox 360. After spending five years at Electronic Arts Canada where he conceived and produced the million unit-selling Sled Storm for the Sony PlayStation, Adrian co-founded his own game development studio that later went public on the NASDAQ. At his own studio, Adrian produced a PlayStation 2 product with top European electronic music brand Ministry of Sound.
Before joining Relic Entertainment in 2004, Adrian co-created the Urban Vermin intellectual property for Decode Entertainment, a Toronto television and new media production company. Urban Vermin is now a 26 episode children’s TV series, airing on YTV and around the world, as well as a Nintendo DS game prototype. Adrian then produced The Outfit, Relic’s first console title and THQ’s only Xbox 360 launch title. He then founded Relic Labs, where he developed innovative new game concepts utilizing emergent themes such as casual gaming, Web 2.0 and free-to-play business models.
In 2006, Adrian was named Producer of the Year by the Canadian New Media Awards. Also in 2006, The Outfit was awarded Game of the Year by the Canadian Awards for the Electronic and Animated Arts. Additionally, Adrian has previously taught Team Management in the Game Design program at Vancouver Film School. Adrian writes www.FreeToPlay.biz and has spoken on the subject of free-to-play at conferences such as GDC (Game Developers Conference) and SXSW (South by Southwest).