EA Vancouver International Women's Day Event Interview

March 10, 2023 at 8:44pm
By Jason Stettner

Interview with Natali Altshuler, Senior Vice President, Head of Operations - EA Sports & Racing at Electronic Arts

A staple I do in all interviews in order to start things off is to ask that you elaborate a bit about yourself and also tell us a bit about the panel you had led yesterday?

Natali: My name is Natali, and I’m Senior Vice President, Head of Operations at EA Sports and Racing which is one of the larger divisions within EA. We have more than 2500 developers across the globe and a large portfolio of games connecting hundreds of millions of players.

Like you said, yesterday we had an amazing event celebrating International Women’s Day at our beautiful EA Vancouver campus. It was a partnership event with Canada Learning Code.

Leading a keynote must have been an interesting experience, tell us about what that was like and what some of your favorite moments were from the panel discussion?

Natali: I’ll be honest, it’s always a little bit nerve wracking to be a keynote, but I think it’s also just the topic that’s very close to me heart. Obviously being a woman in tech and graduating with a computer science degree.

I always really want to encourage other women to consider a career in technology and for those starting out their career journey, to act as a potential role model for them. Show them what’s possible. With your second question, some of my favorite moments of the panel.

The diversity of the panel that we had. Really highlighting the different career paths you can take. The different journeys you can take. Whether it’s educational journeys, or development journeys. How unique every story is, with the consistent themes with tech being a big part of our world. So is steam education.

Networking is a big part of the tech industry, what sort of opportunities do you find these types of events provide for those curious about attending one down the road?

Natali: I think it’s always great to go out, in our case, we have a panel discussion, tour and networking session. For us it was a few different aspects that were beneficial. To take a look at what our studio was like, see the amazing facility that we operate within.

I think from a panel and networking perspective it really allows for us to talk about what we can do to make tech a more inclusive and equitable space for women. On the panel, it really helps celebrate some of the women we have in tech and some of the impact they’re driving on a daily basis.

I think overall, I heard it as a common theme when chatting with many of the women, post the event, was the sense of community and connection it helped provide for women in industry.

For this particular event there was a tie in with CLC (Canada Learning Code), could you tell us about their role in this and the goals of their involvement?

Natali: EA’s partnership with Canada Learning Code dates back to 2017, when we made an investment to support the local chapter in Vancouver. Over the years we hosted code building workshops to offer girls, and transgender kids hands-on experiences to inspire them to see technology differently.

Over the Covid years we had to scale that back, as we couldn’t come together. It’s a little harder to do it in a virtual setting. Yesterday was just an opportunity for all of us to come back, to celebrate being back.

We hosted the event with them combined, we announced that we would be investing $25,000 to Canada Learning Code which will ultimately let them reach more than 12 thousand learners across British Columbia.

It’s really great to see the tech industry, particularly the Canadian side offering more events of this type. From what I understand you’ve been in the industry for, a number of years, how would you say these opportunities have changed since you started?

Natali: I’ve been in the tech industry for twenty years now. It’s definitely changed, there’s more emphasis and a more structured approach. Whether it’s events like this that we host externally, or even events we put on internally.

Whether that’s employee resource groups we organize. I think externally there’s more of an appetite from women wanting to learn more about potential career opportunities. I think there was this really bad misconception that gaming was not for women, which is kind of crazy.

If you think of it, half of the world’s gamers are women. So of course gaming, and making games is for women as well. I think there’s really just an educational piece for us to tell stories of different career paths and opportunities that exist. Just to help inspire what can be.

With you being part of EA (Electronic Arts). Outside of this event, what sort of other programs and or networking opportunities does the company offer that you may want to highlight for those curious about the industry?

Natali: We’ve been doing a fair bit of connecting with our communities. Of course EA is a global company, there are lots of different events we do in different locations and different sites. I can speak to the Vancouver ones.

Over the last few months we had UVIC, we invited a lot of the students to come in and have a conversation about career and tech. What it means to be working in gaming.

We’ve also had events with the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade. So we have a partnership with them. They have a program, called Leaders of Tomorrow which is a fantastic program. We have a fair amount of events going on. We’ve shifted from virtual to in-house recently.

With a reflection upon the Women in Tech event from yesterday, if there was one thing you’d like taken away from one witnessing the keynote, what would that be?

Natali: I’ve had a number of women come up to me after the event to chat with me. One of the consistent themes was how encouraged they were by the different career paths or opportunities. How supportive the environment felt, that they would be able to pursue something like this. The information that was shared to them from others, tangible next steps they could take to further their career.

For the younger individual looking at tech industry in their future, or perhaps for one that’s aspiring towards leadership, is there any sort of knowledge and or guidance you’d like to impart for their journey?

Natali: I’m a mom, I have a boy and a girl. I’ve often told my girl she can do anything and everything she wants to do, just like my son can. From a very young age we’ve encouraged her to look at robotics, steam related activities and coding clubs. She’s grown up in that space where she feels that she belongs.

I know many girls, or younger generations don’t quite feel that same level of support. My advice to them would be to give it a shot, a try and keep a curious open mindset. Even if they may not initially feel as comfortable or confident to just continue to learn. I think amazing and wonderful things can happen to them.

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