Taking on fractional and project work

I've led teams of 200 and rebuilt myself after burning out.

Now I help game studios, app companies and other startups do the hard parts of company building: inside the team, on a defined project, or from the board. Fifteen years in mobile games, part of three acquisitions.

Work with me See how I help
Gabriele Aimone
15 years building
game studios

Built and led at

How I help

Companies rarely die of bad products. They die of operations and people.

For game studios and consumer app companies, from first hire to acquisition.

Sound familiar?

  • You grew from 15 to 60 people and nothing works the way it used to.
  • Your game is slipping and nobody owns delivery.
  • You're raising and the story doesn't hold up yet.
  • The founder is doing everything and running out of steam.
01 · Embedded

Inside your team

Two to four days a week

I take a seat in your leadership team and run the part that's slowing you down.

  • Fractional or interim COO / CEO
  • Executive Producer
  • Head of Operations or People
Check availability
02 · Project

A defined project

Fixed scope, fixed end date

A clear problem, owned end to end, and a team that can carry it on after I leave.

  • Leading a launch or key program
  • Opening a new studio or office
  • Operations and org audit
  • Fundraising and pitch deck prep
Scope a project
03 · Ongoing

Advisor or board member

A few hours a month

Someone in your corner who has already made the mistakes.

  • Founder and CEO advisor
  • Current: Systems Heavy and Hidden Gems
  • Former: HALE Gameswork
  • Board member
  • Fees, equity, or a mix
Start a conversation
04 · Speaking Talks and workshops on studio culture, leadership, fundraising and burnout. See topics
Track record

Fifteen years inside the studios that shipped at the highest level.

Player support to People & Operations to CEO. Finance before games. I've scaled teams, built companies from scratch, and been inside three acquisitions.

15
Years in games
11
Shipped mobile titles
200
Largest team led
3
Acquisitions

Things I've built

10 → 200

Built Supercell's outsourced player support from scratch across India, Bulgaria, Northern Ireland and Costa Rica, then grew the Bulgaria team from 10 to 200 people.

Supercell

#1 → PlayStation

First employee. Opened the Berlin studio, hired the team and built People and Operations from zero. Acquired by PlayStation two years after opening.

Savage Game Studios / Neon Koi

Turnaround

Stepped in to replace the CEO, raised new funding and signed a publishing deal.

Playnest

2 launches, solo

Ran player support single-handed for the global launches of Robocide and Winterstate.

PlayRaven

  1. Grit Studios Current
    Chief Executive Officer Subscription lifestyle apps built with game-industry know-how.
  2. Playnest
    Chief Executive Officer Formerly Wonderhive.
  3. TIFO
    Co-Founder (advisory)
  4. Savage Game Studios / Neon Koi Acquired
    Director of People & Operations Acquired by Sony Interactive Entertainment in 2022. Founding studio of the PlayStation Studios mobile division.
  5. Helsinki Games Capital
    Founder & Managing Director Backing emerging teams. Now Espoo Game Lab.
  6. PlayRaven Acquired
    Player Support Lead Acquired by Rovio Entertainment, 2018.
  7. Supercell Acquired
    Player Support & Outsourcing Majority stake acquired by SoftBank & GungHo, 2013.
Speaking

Talks I give.

I speak at industry conferences and mentor founders in accelerator programs, including Quickload, the games accelerator in Turin. Each talk also works as a hands-on session for your team.

01

Establishing a culture in your new studio

Mission, values and the habits that carry them. Why culture starts at the top, why flat organisations are a myth, and how to hire fountains instead of drains.

02

Pitch deck workshop

A hands-on session for founders raising. What investors actually read, what they skip, and where most decks quietly lose the room.

03

Leadership, burnout and coming back

A first-hand account of burning out while leading, what eight months of rebuilding taught me, and what it changed about how I run teams.

Book me to speak
Working with Gabri has been a master class in entrepreneurship. I wouldn't be where I am today without him.
Michael Leone Chief Executive Officer, Systems Heavy
About

Four countries, two careers, one very useful breakdown.

I left Italy for Ireland in 2005 without speaking English. I took a job in a call centre at Hertz, made team leader in six months, and moved into the finance team six months after that. In 2008 I moved to Spain for a finance role at Agilent Technologies, and learned Spanish the same way I'd learned English: by arriving without it.

In 2012 I moved to Finland and into games, and never left. Over the next fifteen years I went from player support at Supercell to Director of People & Operations at Savage Game Studios, which PlayStation acquired two years after I joined as employee number one. Along the way I led teams of up to 200, co-founded TIFO, founded Helsinki Games Capital to back emerging teams, and was inside three acquisitions.

Then I burned out. Properly. I stopped, went deep into therapy, started a gratitude journal, and took up ice swimming because Finland. Eight months later I was a different person with a better outlook. I now consider it one of the most valuable things that has happened to me, and it is the reason I talk about it publicly rather than quietly.

Today I'm CEO at Grit Studios, and I work with founders on the two things that actually break companies: operations and people.

Gabri smiling outdoors on a sunny day
Based
Helsinki, Finland
Focus
Operations, people & scaling
Sectors
Games, mobile & consumer subscription
Languages
Italian, English, Spanish
  • Gabri laughing over dinner
  • Gabri by a Finnish lake, black and white
  • Gabri on a boat by the sea
Contact

Let's talk.

Tell me what you're building and where you're stuck. If I'm not the right person, I'll usually know who is.

On-site (unless abroad) or remote.

gabri@aimone.io LinkedIn