Laila Shabir is the co-founder and CEO of Girls Make Games. A Pakistani immigrant raised in the United Arab Emirates, Laila attended MIT and pursued finance at BlackRock followed by economic research at The Brookings Institution. She eventually found her passion in video games while watching her husband, Ish, play Halo competitively. By seeing the skills he acquired through playing, she realized that a connection between education and video games needed to be formed.
In 2014, GamesIndustry.biz named Laila the Games Industry Person of the Year, and in 2018, she received the Visionary Award from the ESA. A game developer and proud gamer herself, Laila has set a personal goal to teach one million girls how to make games through her work.
Favorite Game: League of Legends