Phaedra Boinodiris is IBM's global lead for serious games and gamification at IBM across all industries. Since the start of her career at IBM, Ms. Boinodiris has incubated IBM's first games for marketing program (creating the top lead-generating asset on the Internet for IBM), a games for marketing program, a games for training program, and IBM's very first consulting practice integrating games with real data and real processes to optimize high-return processes. She is also the author of Serious Games for Business.

In 2010, Ms. Boinodiris was made responsible for IBM's serious games strategy for the US public sector, mainly focusing on defense. Her strategies for evolving serious games have been championed by four-star generals, and she has presented her ideas for advanced process optimization games to the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the US Department of Defense and to the head of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Ms. Boinodiris has keynoted two NATO Summits and continues to cochair serious games summits internationally. Her earlier work in serious games is being used in over 1,000 schools worldwide to teach students the fundamentals of business optimization.

Ms. Boinodiris was honored by Women in Games International as one of the top 100 women in the games industry. Prior to working at IBM, she was a serial entrepreneur for 14 years, during which time she cofounded WomenGamers.Com, a popular women's gaming portal. There she subsequently started the first scholarship for women to pursue degrees in game design and development in the US. Ms. Boinodiris happily mentors business school students at her alma mater, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.