Building a new international studio
In 2020, Amber announced the opening of its Montréal studio as part of the company’s broader international expansion, and appointed me General Manager to lead it, a role I held through 2023. The new studio initially focused on engineering, localization and quality assurance, with additional disciplines planned as the operation grew and matured. The local team numbered in the tens, within an international network of over a hundred across Amber’s studios.
The role brought together several dimensions of studio building at once: establishing a new Canadian operation, recruiting and developing the local team, creating an effective day-to-day operating environment, and connecting local execution with Amber’s wider international network, which already included studios in Bucharest, Guadalajara, San Francisco and Los Angeles. I structured scalable delivery frameworks to support rapid growth without eroding quality, built centers of excellence to increase specialization rather than simply growing headcount, and contributed to competitive prototype wins against more than a dozen other studios.
Investissement Québec documented the launch and described my background in production, management, technical art direction and studio creation, including my earlier work at Ubisoft Halifax. You can read the original announcement here.