Heidy Motta – Womenize! – Inspiring Stories
Womenize! – Inspiring Stories is our weekly series featuring inspirational women from games and tech. For this edition we talked to Heidy Motta, Operations Manager at Extremely OK Games and Miniboss. Read more about Heidy in this interview:
Hi Heidy, thanks for taking the time to talk to us! Could you tell us a bit more about your career path towards your current role as Operations Manager?
My path started with Miniboss in 2017, when I started working with their administrative side. Before that, I was studying International Relations at UNIFESP, one of the most acclaimed universities in Brazil, and I was trying to find my career path and exploring what I liked.
Because of that, I worked with cultural production, did some history essays at my university about Japanese immigration in Brazil, and for that I interviewed more than ten Japanese immigrants, including a survivor of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs and the Bombing of Tokyo. I also worked with foreign trade and did some gigs at a sweet shop. These were all very interesting experiences and I am glad I had the opportunity to explore at the time.
Working with the administrative side of games with Miniboss in Brazil was a challenging and amazing experience as well, since I was seeing very clearly how games can change people’s lives for the better. People get such a strong connection with the games they like, that working with it started to bring me the sense of fulfillment in life, a feeling that I was doing my part. I was doing Miniboss’ finances, meetings, social media, PR and more, which combined two of my favorite things: art and organization.
Miniboss was already working with Matt Makes Games at the time for “Celeste” and I got involved creating “Celeste”‘s Twitter account and managing the game’s Tumblr (devlog) as well. After the release of “Celeste” and its huge success, Pedro, Amora, Maddy and Noel decided to create Extremely OK Games and I moved to Canada to work at the EXOK office, in 2019. I have been managing our office since then, doing our bookkeeping, payroll, PR, social media, community, game sales, and many other roles. Since our company is independent and small, I need to wear lots of hats.
It has been such a rich experience for me and I am really grateful that people enjoy our games.
What are some of your everyday key responsibilities?
Pretty much all of EXOK’s administrative tasks, such as bookkeeping, payroll, game sales, office management and additional roles like community and social media management, social media and public relations.
You’ve accompanied a lot of games and their development teams in the course of your career. Which skills would you say are helpful and crucial when it comes to being an Operations Manager?
Attention to detail, being organized and not being afraid of asking questions if you don’t know something. Ask the lawyers, the accountants or anyone that can help you understand better about legal documents that you will need to deal with. Keeping a beginner’s mindset, which means that you are always learning and being open to changes and improvements. Be flexible and patient with yourself in the process as well.