Lena LeRay

Lena LeRay is a licensing manager at Seven Seas Entertainment, helping choose what titles get licensed and then making sure all the paperwork goes through so that books can happen. She also works with IGDA Foundation, guiding its programming for the International Scholars cohort of grantees.

During her time as PR account executive at Stride PR, she oversaw more than 70 campaigns for games including Astroneer, The Gardens Between, and VA-11 HALL-A.

As a hobbyist game developer, she designed the gameplay, levels, and narrative for Ultra Hat Dimension from Kitsune Games, and served as producer for her three companions on the project.

Lena was BitSummit‘s first ever volunteer and helped with on-site event management from year one until 2019. She still helps curate BitSummit’s selections, and has helped in similar capacity with Indie MEGABOOTH and been a judge and jury member for the IGF. She wrote for IndieGames.com (now IndieGamesPlus) for more than three years, starting a tradition of weekly trailer roundups that continued for years after she left.

Before joining the video game industry, Lena spent five years teaching English in Japan as part of the JET Program. During that time, she helped run HEC Camp, an annual summer camp reward for junior high and high school students who do well in the Hokkaido English Challenge. She is fluent in business-level Japanese, including reading and writing, with Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) N2 certification.

Lena also enjoys fiber arts such as needlepoint and quilting, as well as weight lifting. Her favorite foods are eggs and pumpkin.