Digital Entertainment

Ventura Barba

Executive Director – Advanced Music, S.L. (Sónar, Sónar +D & SonarKids)

In his Executive Director role, Ventura manages the overall business at Sónar, the leading festival for Music, Creativity & Technology (www.sonar.es) that takes place every year in Barcelona, Reykjavík, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Tokyo, Buenos Aires, Bogotá, Santiago de Chile and Cape Town. They also organize Sónar +D: the international Congress of Creativity, Technology & Business, designed to promote talent and business opportunities in the digital creative industries environment (www.sonarplusd.com).

Prior to Sónar, Ventura had several senior roles at Yahoo! (1999-2009): General Counsel for Yahoo! Spain, Director of the Legal and Business Affairs Department of Yahoo! Music International and General Manager of Yahoo! Music International.

Ventura also worked for BMG Music Spain & Portugal (a Bertelsmann company), as Director of the Legal and Business Affairs Department both for the record company and the publishing one. Before that, he worked as a solicitor specialized on New Technologies and Entertainment. He also worked at the Spanish Authors Collecting Society (SGAE) and in the Movie Industry for the Los Angeles (CA) based company Arenas Group.

Ventura has a degree in Law by the University of Barcelona and MBA in Cultural Enterprises Management by the University of Madrid.

He is co-founder and Academic Board member at ISDI (Instituto Superior para el Desarrollo de Internet) and professor in several universities such Berklee College of Music (Valencia Campus). Ventura has also published several books on Music Industry field.

Manuel Balsera

Commercial & Marketing Director – AMC Networks International Iberia

Manuel Balsera is the Sales and Marketing Director at AMC Networks International Iberia, the largest producer of themed television channels in Spain and Portugal. Marketing, affiliates, ad sales and business development are only some of his responsibilities at AMC.

He has extensive professional experience in important roles at various companies such as the agency Proximity BBDO, ONO or Vivendi, to name a few. Founding partner and investor in numerous digital startups, the last few years have given Balsera the chance to explore his entrepreneurial spirit. His outstanding work as a teacher has led him to becoming a visiting professor at different international business schools and the director of the Master of Digital Marketing and the Senior Management Program in Digital Business at ESIC-ICEMD.

AMC Networks International Iberia currently has 23 very famous television channels, including AMC, Canal Hollywood, Odisea, Natura and Canal Cocina. Balsera will be attending the upcoming edition of the European Ecommerce Conference, where he will share his experiences in the Digital Entertainment track.

Víctor Ruiz

Founder & CEO – Lakento

Víctor Ruiz has over 30 years’ experience in programming, designing and producing video games, with more than 20 titles edited by market-leading companies such as Electronic Arts, Atari or Codemasters. Vice president of DEV, the Spanish Video Game Developers Association, and founding partner of the now mythical companies Dinamic Software and Dinamic Multimedia. In addition, he was one of the original designers and producers of the legendary game PC Fútbol.

Over the past 14 years, he has been in charge of FX Interactive, a company celebrated for its own video game digital platform in Spain, Italy and South America. He is one of the founding partners. Three years ago he began developing and publishing a version of Football Club Simulator on Steam for gamers across the world.

Among his latest projects as a designer, it is worth noting Navy Moves, a video game with an innovative “free to play” concept. In 2014 he launched Lakento, a startup that developed, and now manufactures and commercializes virtual reality glasses. This company also publishes virtual reality games for mobile phones. Ruiz will be speaking at the ninth edition of the European Ecommerce Conference.

Eloy Sasot

Global Director of Pricing, Data Science & Data Analytics – HarperCollins Publishers

Eloy Sasot leads Pricing, Data Science and Data Analytics for HarperCollins Publishers, the second largest consumer book publisher in the world, with operations in 18 countries, nearly 200 years of history and more than 65 unique imprints. He works with his teams and each division around the world to drive data-driven decision-making, with particular focus on Pricing. Besides his global role, he is Board Level Director of HarperCollins UK.

Since joining HarperCollins in 2011, Eloy has pioneered the creation and development of the pricing function, first in the UK, and then its extension to international scale for the global company. Previous to HarperCollins, Eloy worked in a number of countries, languages and industries, including publishing scientific papers on spacecraft orbits for the European Space Agency and managing global pricing initiatives at American Express.

He holds an MBA from INSEAD and a Master’s in Mathematical Engineering from INSA Toulouse.

Álex Fernández

Senior Publisher Relations – 24symbols

His passion for publishing came from his years at the university, where he studied literature and philosophy, and he discovered the ins and outs of the editorial work and the unknown and sometimes even anonymous job of editors and their teams. He ended up specializing in publishing in a course taught by Silvia Querini, publisher of Lumen (PRH). He worked briefly at Ediciones Acantilado, and when he turned twenty-five, he achieved one of his dreams when he started working at Norma Editorial, a Spanish graphic novel publishing house. He first directed the kids magazine ¡Dibus!, then he was promoted to desk editor, and years later to editorial director.

Years later, he looked for other goals and horizons, and he studied and achieved a Master in Internet Business (ISDI). Since 2014, he have been working at 24symbols, an online reading platform, that aspires to be the Spotify of ebooks. He is also a freelance advisor to Spaceman Books, a brand new independent graphic novel publishing house, and recently he has given his first class in Santillana’s Master of Publishing.

Elena González

Deputy Director of Digital Economy – red.es

Digital Entertainment