David Braben OBE, President and Founder, Frontier Developments plc
LSEG’s Neil Shah speaks to David Braben OBE, Frontier Development’s President and Founder, to discuss the videogame developer’s extraordinary rise from a Cambridge back-bedroom in 1982 to the world-leading studio it is today, developing titles including Elite, Formula 1 and Jurassic World.
With Frontier’s share price rising almost 10-fold since its hotly anticipated IPO in 2014, David speaks candidly about the challenges he has faced running both a private and a public business and his optimistic outlook for the company’s future. In addition to its shareholder friendly policies, David also emphasizes how important it is for Frontier to engage and listen to their customers, and coupled with their passion for product, makes the business an inspiring place to work.
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Neil Shah, Head of content, Edison Group
Neil is a qualified accountant (PwC) with nine years’ experience as an equities analyst at Goldman Sachs. As Goldman’s building and materials analyst in London, he was ranked second by both Institutional Investor and Reuters. He left Goldman Sachs to help set up the specialist trading hedge fund, Tusker Capital.
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David Braben, President and Founder, Frontier Developments plc
Joined: January 1994David was the founding shareholder of Frontier in January 1994 and CEO for over 28 years until August 2022, when Frontier announced David’s transition to his new role of President and Founder. Jonny Watts, previously Frontier’s Chief Creative Officer, was promoted to Chief Executive Officer to lead the next phase of the Company's evolution.David is the co-author of the seminal Elite title and has 40 years’ experience in the games industry. David is also one of the six founders of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, a charity which aims to inspire a new generation of children to get interested in computer science through the use of a low cost creditcard sized computer that plugs into your TV and a keyboard.David is a member of Cambridge Angels, investing and supporting early stage companies, including investing in companies that can help reduce our carbon footprint. David is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, and a Fellow of BAFTA (one of only 103 starting with Alfred Hitchcock) and the recipient of three honorary doctorates (from Abertay University, The Open University and York University), and received an OBE in the 2014 Birthday Honours for services to the UK computer and video games industry. He is also a Vice President of the charity SpecialEffect.
