President
Zev Shlasinger
Zev Shlasinger has been in the hobby game industry for almost 30 years. He founded Z-Man Games in 1999, sold it in 2011, then worked for the new owners until mid-January 2016. At the end of January, he took the position of Director of Board Games with Wizkids. Some of the titles you might be familiar with are: Pandemic, Fantasy Realms, Agricola, Sidereal Confluence, Clash of Cultures, Merchants & Marauders, Tales of the Arabian Nights, Shadow Hunters, Arboretum, Tragedy Looper, Grave Robbers from Outer Space, Tournament at Camelot, Super Skill Pinball, and a host of others.
Board Members
Founder and owner of SAHMReviews.com, Nicole has been involved in social media marketing since 2007. She has partnered with numerous major brands such as Netflix, Nintendo, Domino’s and Disney, has been featured in McDonald’s videos as well as Maria Bailey’s book “Power Moms”. Over a decade ago, Nicole, along with her husband, Scott, began shifting their marketing focus to the tabletop game industry, helping publishers reach the “mom” market. She’s currently the President of the Board of Directors for GAMA (The Game Manufacturers Association) where she previously served as Treasurer. Nicole is also the Chief Financial Officer of Play to Z. Always a SAHM (stay-at-home-mom) and mother of two amazing daughters, if you can’t find Nicole, she is probably somewhere being an advocate for playing board games.
Stephen Buonocore is the retired founder, owner and President of Stronghold Games, formed in 2009 to publish quality hobby board and card games. Stronghold Games and Indie Boards & Cards merged in 2018 to form Indie Game Studios, where Buonocore continued in his role as President. Buonocore provided vision and guidance for hundreds of game titles, both developed within the company and in partnership with global publishers.
Geoff Engelstein is an award-winning game designer, educator, and author. Game credits include Super Skill Pinball, Space Cadets, and The Expanse. He is the co-founder of the influential Ludology podcast, and co-author of Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design, Achievement Relocked, and other books on game design.
Timm Metivier has been an avid gamer his whole life. He is actively involved in the gaming industry in many aspects. He opened the first board game cafe, Meepleville, in the state of Nevada in 2016. He also started Meeplecon, now Dice Tower West, in 2015. He worked for Iello as their demo team coordinator for over 8 years. He loves all types of games, with a particular passion for the heavy euro games and trick-taking games.
Marcus Ross (he/him – Lawful Good Enough) is a designer of quirky, family friendly games from Omaha, Nebraska. He is a frequent contributor to OFPG Voices where he shares tips on prototyping and playtesting with the community. Marcus is the librarian at Spielbound, Inc which hosts arguably the largest publicly accessible board game collection at over 3300 unique titles. He believes games should be easy to play, fun to lose, colorful, accessible, diverse and just a little bizarre. You can find him nose deep in a rulebook at a convention near you.