This week I caught up with Xavier Bourlard, advisor at Flixr and industry legend! Read on for more.

1. Tell us a bit about Xavier! Who are you and what do you do?

Hi guys, I'm Xavier, a french dude living half of the time in Barcelona, and the other half of the year between Mexico, Portugal, Brazil etc. I've been navigating in the super fast paced ad-tech industry for more than 15 years (yep time flies when you're having fun, but it's also scary haha) and my background in the Mobile advertising industry counts for around 9 years. Early 2021, I decided to start my own activity and work on mid-long term missions with Apps, Adtech platforms and recently joined Flixr studio as their Advisor in EMEA

2. Are you a morning or an evening person?

I used to be an evening person, but I don't know, I guess with time I like waking up early, to feel the quietness of the environment, When the city is still sleeping, it's for me the best time to set intentions for the day and to do some focus work.

3. What are your go to games at the moment?

French Tarot (online tournaments when I need to unwind and focus on something else)

Angry Birds Dream Blast

Monopoly Tycoon

Word Connect

4. You can only play one genre of game for the rest of your life, what genre are you playing?

Card games

5. A song plays every time you walk into a room. What song would you choose and why?

Difficult, I have so many! Depending on what I need or I want to hear at a specific moment.

But I would say So Free and In The Real World, both from Alex Serra resonate a lot lately, freedom is everything!

6. How did you start working in mobile gaming?

I started almost 9 years ago, as Head of Mobile Business development in an adtech company, working with companies such as Zynga, Supercell, and some that don't even exist anymore. We were in charge of the soft launch and WW launch of the game, and the main goal was at that time to get the game featured and being in the top-10 of the global charts!

7. Can you share a bit more about Flixr?

Flixr builds short form video creative that drives return on ad spend on social. We've produced over 5,000 videos for companies like TikTok, Zynga, Netmarble, Experian and Subway and bring vast experience to designing videos for social that perform. Try AI-powered Flixr Studio now - a self serve platform to produce UGC and short form video in hours.

8. As a Barcelonite, what are your thoughts on the swell of mobile game companies in Barcelona in recent years?

Barcelona has already been for years one the major cities in Spain, attracting ad-tech companies. It's true that for the past 2 to 3 years, with the multiplication of the new gaming studios setting up here in "la ciudad condal" this brings a different energy, more talents, diversified profiles, while integrating the local people within this hyper growth development,  and that's wonderful!

9. Thanks for joining us at Gamesforum Barcelona last month! What was your highlight from the event?

Overall I really appreciated people from the gaming industry who were willing to share their best practices, their wins but also losses and what they did learn from it. This conference and the premium content of the panels has been really focused on sharing expertise and how we can help each other to grow in a challenging environment.

10. We had some great panels and presentations in Barcelona, can you pick a favourite?

Hard to pick one indeed, but I would say the one with Danika and Emmanuel from Social Point, "Increase your creative winner hit rate… while having fun!" It was fun, and very interesting to hear what they've done for instance with the internal UGC challenge, and how open they have been to share their best practices and ideas to improve their creative KPIs.