Jen MacLean Named Head of Worldwide Business Development at Amazon

Games industry veteran Jen MacLean joined Amazon Game Tech as the new head of worldwide business development for small and mid-size developers, Amazon announced Tuesday via a blog post.

MacLean will assist game creators with development for AWS, Twitch Prime, Alexa, and Amazon.com. In an interview, MacLean expressed her enthusiasm for working with smaller developers, explaining that small and mid-size developing teams explore new experiences using creative and innovative things, since they aren’t constrained by “the way we’ve always done things” the way larger studios are.

“Whether developers need help building their games faster, launching and operating them more efficiently, or improving marketing and user acquisition, I’m here to help,” MacLean said of her new role. “Amazon has an unrivaled collection of tools to help developers succeed – from AWS and Twitch Prime, to Alexa and Amazon.com – and I get to use these resources to help small and mid-sized developers around the world create amazing player experiences.”

MacLean left her role as executive director for the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) on April 12. She told Variety that she didn’t plan to leave IGDA.

“But I was approached by a company that offered me a chance to support developers in a way the IGDA couldn’t in terms of scale and opportunity,” MacLean said.

MacLean intends to use her new role to help underrepresented developers. She also wants to expand Amazon’s offerings to underrepresented and underserved communities, such as its Amazon Future Engineer program.

“I’d love to see every potential engineer, artist, and designer consider game development as a career,” she said.

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