Richard is a Brooklyn native and has over 20 years of experience in new product development in multiple industries, including video game, automotive, CPG, and F&B. He started his career as an Automotive Design Engineer for Honda and Porsche in Germany then post-MBA switched to marketing for a Brand Management role at P&G in Puerto Rico. He moved on to serve as the Global Product Planner for Xbox 360 hardware at Microsoft and had the opportunity to work with some amazing partners such as Todd McFarlane & Bungie (Halo), Epic (Gears of War) and Lucas Arts (Star Wars Kinect), launching cool special edition products at San Diego Comic Con over multiple years. He is currently an Executive at PepsiCo where he leads a team to drive global technology innovations across multiple digital marketing platforms. In his spare time he serves on the Board of the New York Havana Film Festival, is currently working on his first fantasy novel, has almost maxed out all of his skill attributes on Skyrim, and writes about the corporate skill-building power of Dungeons and Dragons. He blogs at http://richardvelazquez.wordpress.com and can be found on http://about.me/richard.velazquez or on Twitter – @Rich_Velazquez