Ukie and the Decade Ahead
Ukie CEO Dr Jo Twist OBE is celebrating 10 years at the head of the UK’s trade body. Chris Wallace catches up with her to look back on her decade at the helm, and to look ahead to what the next 10 years might bring.
A
decade is a long time to spend in any industry – but in a space that moves and evolves as fast as the games industry, it’s
an era. It’s hard not to think of that rapid evolution as I
sit writing this feature – sitting at my desk at home, with my PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Nintendo Switch all sitting within reach, tempting me to distraction. In January of 2012 the industry was gearing up for its own new generation of consoles, with the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One still a year away, while Nintendo’s ill-fated Wii U was set to release at the end of the year. And meanwhile the poor beleaguered MCV staff
writers of days gone would have huddled together in the office, free from worries about pandemics, and simply trying to remember how to make a magazine after the long Christmas break. The ways in which the UK games industry has
changed over the last decade are too numerous to mention, and that’s before you even get to life since March 2020. Which is why I was delighted to have the
opportunity to catch up with Dr Jo Twist OBE, who has just celebrated her tenth anniversary as CEO of Ukie. It would be an impressive achievement in any career, but her position at the helm of the industry’s
trade body puts her in a unique position to not only look back at how far we’ve come, but provide insight as to what the next decade might look like. And whatever 2032 looks like, it’s a safe
assumption that Twist will probably be pretty busy. “I am my harshest critic,” says Twist. “So there
will never be a time where I just sit on my laurels. That’s not ever going to happen.”
LOOKING BACK Those of us familiar with Ukie’s work can testify to that, I’m sure. But when looking back on her accomplishments, Twist instead celebrates the people around her – both those who were supporting her in 2012, and the team that has built up around her in more recent years. “Well, I think, first and foremost, it’s really about
the team that we’ve built at Ukie, because they’re the ones who actually do the hard work. I’m here to build that team. I’m here to set the direction, I’m here to make things happen. And I’m here to give them a sort of bold ambition. I am really proud of the team that they are, and therefore the organisation that Ukie is. “When I started, the challenge was that we
rebranded, changing from ELSPA to Ukie. We were changing what we do, we needed to reinvent this
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