Roger Kurtz Email & Phone Number

Seattle, Wa, Us

New York, Ny, Us

New York, Ny, Us

I manage and support an amazing team of Producers and Release Managers in the Seattle area and vicinity, working with independent developers to bring their vision to life and to market. Private Division is a developer-focused publisher that partners with the finest creative talent in the video game industry, empowering studios to develop the games that they are passionate about creating, while providing the support that they need to make their titles critically and commercially successful on a global scale. The Label publishes the Kerbal Space Program franchise, Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey from Panache Digital Games, The Outer Worlds from Obsidian Entertainment, Disintegration from V1 Interactive, and OlliOlli World and Rollerdrome from Roll7, with future unannounced projects in development with Moon Studios, Evening Star, Piccolo Studio, Yellow Brick Games, and other esteemed independent developers. Private Division publishes the physical retail edition of Hades from Supergiant Games on PlayStation® and Xbox consoles.

Redmond, Washington, Us

Senior Program Manager Lead on a central engineering team in the Windows NEXT organization, managing 3 PMs and winning the NEXT "Lead by Doing" cultural values award in 2017.• App Portfolio Lead – Drive roadmap & development across a set of desktop and mobile apps that come with Windows, including Calculator, Notepad, Snipping Tool, and others. Deliver monthly releases across these apps over 4 major OS releases with total usage of over 200M Monthly Average Devices. In collaboration with Design, Engineering, and Quality, determine roadmap and manage development in these classic Windows apps by pushing & validating new platform, device, and developer ecosystem capabilities like the Fluent Design System, Accessibility, Cognitive Services, new/upcoming devices, and Mixed Reality.• UI/UX System coordination & WDG partnership Lead – Represent Windows NEXT app team priorities & goals across WDG in context of Microsoft’s Fluent Design System. Drove initial consumption, validation, and adoption of the first wave of Fluent Design Scenarios across 10 apps, delivering a broad announce at //build, holistic & consistent adoption, & feature improvements that benefit the entire UWP ecosystem. Drove alignment on and pushed new Fluent Design scenarios into the pipeline that accrue value to NEXT’s 3D For Everyone and Mixed Reality organizational priorities.• Windows NEXT Release Management lead – Manage and coordinate code flow for more than 30 apps in the Windows desktop, mobile, and xbox images across 3 major OS releases. Drive app team buy-in and implementation of cross-division priorities like minimizing code footprint in Windows, coordinated updates to latest framework package versions, etc. Manage the KPIs, process, tools, and technology by which app teams guarantee quality of regular app releases via Microsoft Store. Moved to an increasingly self-serve automated model that resulted in increased efficiency and reduced budget/spent on the part of the RM team.

• Scalebound - Lead Producer - AAA action/adventure game, cancelled. Published title, developed with Platinum Games in Osaka, Japan.• Xbox One Alignment team - Senior Logistics PM – One of four team members initiating and managing the Xbox One program within Microsoft Studios. Managed creation of chapters of “Book of Yukon”, which guided the vision for showcase console experiences, produced 3rd party roadshow videos that accompanied Xbox One reveal to 3p publisher exec leadership.• Kinect Nat Geo TV (78 Metacritic) - Lead Producer - 1st-gen interactive TV game powered by Kinect. Developed with Relentless in Brighton, UK, involving Nat Geo TV network. Shipped game on schedule at quality. 5th highest-rated Kinect-only game.• Unreleased Kinect Music Game – Lead Producer - Family-focused Kinect music game/service using innovative tech to deliver activities driven and informed by the player’s favorite music. Drove new XDK features. Cancelled before release.• Lips (70 Metacritic) - Lead Producer, Content PM – Karaoke game developed with iNiS in Tokyo, Japan. Owned project for retail discs and all DLC (co-developed in Redmond) Content pipeline involved music industry licensors, MGS, developer, LIVE marketplace, and intl. marketing. Managed team to create and release 600+ pieces of content on-disc and DLC across three languages on weekly bases. Over 3.6M transactions LTD.

• Xbox Live Dashboard Business Owner - Delivered technical requirements, biz model, and strategic roadmap for Xbox LIVE ad business. With no internal resources and influencing product owners from outside the organization, managed & grew Xbox dashboard ad business from $3M in fy06 to ~$13M in fy08. My work delivered on $21M forecast for FY09. • Xbox LIVE Ad Feature Planner- Worked cross-group & drove buy-in across six MS organizations for areas of investment and scenarios. Obtained committed resources, developed & launched highly profitable (90% CM), c-sat positive ad functionality with each LIVE release, including first streaming video ad scenarios.• Operations Program Manager - Designed/implemented processes & infrastructure to execute, deliver, track, & bill over 500 ad campaigns on Xbox LIVE, Xbox.com, involving multiple divisions across Microsoft.

Redmond, Washington, Us

• Merchant Onboarding Lead - Determine & communicate market opportunities, drive technical requirements on core data acquisition projects, yielding over 50MM items for sale on MSN Shopping (625% increase).• MSN Wallet/Dollars implementation PM - Created & managed onboarding & compliance processes for 24 MSN Wallet& MSN Dollars implementations, negotiated all agreements.• Category Manager - Created & implemented marketing plans, merchandised campaigns for 30 merchants driving $10MM revenue.

Ba, English, Communication

General