Q&A with Laura Sturr, General Manager, Operations

amazongames.com:

A veteran interactive entertainment executive for more than 20 years, Laura Sturr leads operations for Amazon Games where she oversees operations, scalable infrastructure, external publishing and general management. Prior to Amazon, she has held roles at Sony Computer Entertainment, THQ, Sony Online Entertainment and Robot Cache. Recently, Laura was appointed to the Women in Games International board (WIGI), a nonprofit organization with a mission to cultivate resources to advance economic equality and diversity in the global games industry. For International Women’s Day earlier this month, she participated in a panel discussion with other women leaders across Games and Entertainment at Amazon that explored how women and allies navigate and achieve equity in games today and in the future.

In the spirit of International Women’s Day, we sat down with Laura to hear her insights on the challenges facing women and steps that we can all take to combat those challenges.

Amazon Games: Laura, thank you for making the time to speak with us today. From your perspective, what are some of the biggest obstacles to achieving equity for women, and how can we overcome them?

Laura Sturr: One of the biggest and earliest obstacles women face in any workplace environment starts with awareness of inequity. It’s important to see, define and understand the bias around us all that can lead to less inclusive workplaces and inhibit women from growth and career advancement. While I have faced doses of egregious behavior most often what I’ve seen day in and day out can be difficult to identify directly. But that range of inequities compounds: microaggressions; peers and teammates devaluing contributions or assuming that you don’t have as much