Founder's Talk: Daryl Holt with Electronic Arts (EA)

As vice president and group COO of EA SPORTS within EA Studios, Daryl Holt is responsible for managing operations for studios in Florida, Texas, British Columbia, and Romania, including the two largest video game development studios in Electronic Arts worldwide locations: the EAV studio in Vancouver and the EA-Tiburon studio in Orlando. In addition, Holt drives all planning and product development execution for various franchises within the EA Studios portfolio that includes the Madden NFL™, FIFA®, NHL®, NBA LIVE™, UFC®, and EA SPORTS Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR™ franchises, as well as all EA SPORTS mobile titles.

Holt began his tenure at EA-Tiburon in 2004 in art production management. In 2005, he established and led the Central Creative group, where he set the strategic vision for centralized concept art, lighting, visual effects, graphic design and user interface departments within the studio. He has worked in development and art management for many of EA-Tiburon’s world-famous game titles through the years such as Madden NFL™ Football, NCAA® Football,Superman Returns, Tiger Woods PGA TOUR™ and NASCAR®. He was also a key architect of EA’s game development framework (GDF) for console-based products and its subsequent revisions for agile development of live digital services and mobile development. Holt was named chief operating officer of the EA-Tiburon studio in 2008, vice president of operations for EA SPORTS in 2010, VP/COO of EA SPORTS worldwide development in 2011, and VP/GM of EA SPORTS in September 2012 before becoming VP/Group COO within EA Studios in December 2013.

Holt has more than 26 years of successful management experience in a variety of industries and a background in consultancy. He previously served as president/CEO of Ovation Media Group Inc. in Tampa, Florida, by providing contracted creative services to major entertainment and multimedia companies either directly or through a strategic partnership with Paper 2 Pixel Creative Group Inc. Holt has also held a variety of leadership positions with Jibe Inc. in Tampa, Florida; Mediacentric Group in Clearwater, Florida; Moon Communications in Clearwater, Florida; All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida; and, Accenture, in Tampa, Florida. He earned a degree in accounting and management information systems at Stetson University and studied computer animation at the International Academy of Design.

Currently, Holt serves on the board of directors for the Orlando Economic Development Commission (EDC), the Florida High Tech Corridor Council, OrlandoiX, and the STEM Alliance of Central Florida.