Mihai Pohontu is the CEO of Amber, a game development agency headquartered in Bucharest, Romania. Previously Mihai was VP of Emerging Platforms at Samsung, working to build the developer ecosystem around the company’s product line. Prior to joining Samsung, he oversaw Product Operations at Disney Interactive, a team of 600+ staff distributed across 9 locations around the world. While at Disney, Mihai founded the Partners group, delivering a portfolio of co-development and licensing projects, leveraging Disney properties and franchises to deliver high quality entertainment created by external studios and publishers, such as the top 50 grossing game “Frozen Free Fall”. Prior to Disney, Mihai was the VP and General Manager of Central Development Services at Electronic Arts, overseeing operational teams supporting 18 development studios on 3 continents. He founded and was the General Manager of EA Romania, one of the largest game development studios in Eastern Europe.

Amber is a game development agency built by a collective of artisans residing in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Bucharest, Guadalajara, Bogotá, Montreal, Kyiv, and Manila, which delivers a reference solution for creative work in interactive entertainment. The agency offers a full range of turn-key product development solutions, including concept-to-delivery game production, live operations, co-development and studio services. Amber is structured as a network of studios with different specializations, which retains over 850 staff around the world. Established in 2013, the agency earned the trust of some of the most important players in the games space, such as Amazon, Disney, Warner Media, King, Roblox, and Rovio. Its portfolio includes hit titles like Tetris Beat, Pac-Man: Chomp Champs, Courtroom Chaos feat. Snoop Dogg, Super Spy Ryan, PositronX, and Link Twin, as well as key contributions to successful games such as Sky: Children of Light, Wild Things, and Gotham Knights.

Amber supports equal opportunities in the games space, spearheading the #HerOwnGame campaign, which aims to assist women considering a career in the industry. It also funds a suite of cultural and educational programs, including the Echo School university program in Bucharest, and the Epic-authorized Echo Training Center in Guadalajara, which has instructed more than 3,700 students in cross-disciplinary game development courses.

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