Kellee Santiago

Who is Kellee Santiago?

Kellee Santiago is a video game designer and producer, and the co-founder and former president of Thatgamecompany. Santiago was born in Caracas, Venezuela and was raised in Richmond, Virginia, where she played video games from a young age and was encouraged by her software engineer father to experiment with computers. During college at the Tisch School of the Arts of New York University, she became active in experimental theater, and intended to pursue it after earning a master's degree in the Interactive Media Program of the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California. While there, however, she became involved in video game design, and produced Cloud, developed by Jenova Chen and a student team. Its success sparked her and Chen to found Thatgamecompany upon graduating, and she became the president.

Santiago produced the studio's first two games, Flow and Flower, moving more into her president role during the development of the company's latest game, Journey. In addition to her work at Thatgamecompany, Santiago is one of the backers of the Indie Fund, a group which invests in the development of independent video games, and is a TED fellow. She married fellow University of Southern California graduate Mike Stein in 2010. As of 2013, she has left Thatgamecompany, and is in charge of developer relations for OUYA.