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Maya Rogers

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Maya Rogers
Maya Rogers
Rogers in October 2022
NationalityAmerican
EducationPepperdine University (BS, Executive MBA)
OccupationBusiness executive
CompanyThe Tetris Company
TitlePresident and chief executive officer
ParentsHenk Rogers, Akemi Rogers

Maya Rogers is an American business executive who has been chief executive officer of The Tetris Company, the company that licenses the Tetris video game brand worldwide, since 2014.[1][2] She holds the title of president and CEO of the company, and was also president and CEO of Blue Planet Software, a role she also took on in 2014.[3][4] She is the daughter of Henk Rogers, who secured the handheld rights to Tetris for Nintendo in the late 1980s and later founded The Tetris Company with the game's creator, Alexey Pajitnov.[5]

Rogers grew up in Japan, studied business at Pepperdine University and worked at American Honda Motor Company and Sony Computer Entertainment before joining her father's company after he had a heart attack in 2005.[5][6] As chief executive she has pursued a licensing strategy that took the brand from video games into toys, apparel, film, esports and consumer products, with 90 licensing partners by 2020.[7][2] She was an executive producer of the 2023 Apple TV+ film Tetris, which dramatised her father's pursuit of the game's rights.[8]

Outside the Tetris business, Rogers co-founded the Honolulu startup accelerator Blue Startups in 2012 with her father and Chenoa Farnsworth.[9] She has held several board seats in Hawaiʻi, including the chair of the board of the American Red Cross of Hawaiʻi from July 2023.[4] She has spoken publicly about the shortage of women in the games industry, and remarks she made on diversity programmes in 2025 drew criticism from the conservative outlet TheBlaze.[5][10]

Early life and education

Rogers is the daughter of Henk Rogers and Akemi Rogers.[3][6] Her father, who was born in the Netherlands and raised in New York, moved to Japan in 1976, where he founded Bullet-Proof Software and developed The Black Onyx, which the family describes as Japan's first role-playing video game.[11] Rogers said in 2026 that she grew up in Japan until the age of 11, during the years when the Nintendo Famicom was launched, and that "there wasn't a single kid in my class who hadn't played Famicom".[6] She described seeing her parents work as entrepreneurs in the early Japanese games industry as "a huge influence".[6]

When her father brought home an early Game Boy version of Tetris in the late 1980s, family members competed against each other for high scores; Rogers said she only understood much later how significant the game was. "You kind of take what your parents do for granted when you're a kid," she told GamesIndustry.biz in 2025.[5] Her mother encouraged her to pursue a career in business: "She was all about climbing the corporate ladder."[5] After her schooling in Japan, the family moved to the United States as Henk Rogers began to base his businesses there.[3]

Rogers studied at Pepperdine University in Los Angeles County, California, earning a Bachelor of Science in business administration; The Cinemaholic dates her studies there from 1996 to 2000.[3][7] She later completed an Executive MBA at Pepperdine's Graziadio School of Business and Management, studying from 2007 to 2009 while already working in the family business.[3][7] She is bilingual in Japanese and English.[6]

Career

American Honda and Sony Computer Entertainment

Rogers's first job after college was at a division of American Honda that dealt with automotive parts, where she worked as a logistics analyst.[6][3] She then joined Sony Computer Entertainment America in Santa Monica as a localization producer, a move she described as combining her interests in cars and video games.[5][3] Her first project there was the Gran Turismo racing series, and she also worked on the localization of Hot Shots Golf. "I like to say I went from physical cars to virtual cars," she said in 2026.[6] Of the Sony job she recalled: "I remember thinking, 'Wow, this is where I belong'."[5]

Joining the family business

In 2005 her father, then 52, had a heart attack. Rogers flew back to Hawaiʻi and decided to ask to work for him: "That was a turning point in my life to say, 'Can I come work for you? I want to learn from you as much as I can while you're still around'."[5][6] In a September 2026 interview she said she had joined the company 17 years earlier; Variety described her in November 2025 as a Tetris employee of more than 17 years.[6][1]

Her first role was director of special projects. At that time the company had an internal development team working on other properties as well as Tetris, and Rogers said the job gave her experience across development and licensing.[6] While studying for her Executive MBA she worked as director of business development for Tetris Online China, and she then spent four years as director of business development at Blue Planet Software, the Rogers family company associated with the Tetris business.[3] Rogers later said that before she ran the company it "was doing other games", but that the business ultimately concluded "Tetris was the golden egg" and concentrated on it.[12]

Chief executive of The Tetris Company, 2014 to present

Rogers became chief executive of Tetris and of Blue Planet Software in 2014.[3][1][9] She has rejected the idea that the role was simply passed to her: "'Inherit' is a strong word ... it was never something that was handed down to me, or was never something I was groomed to become. I took some opportunities."[6] She made a similar point to Refinery29 Australia in 2025: "I don't think I was groomed to become who I am today."[13]

According to PocketGamer.biz, The Tetris Company had spent its first two decades defending its intellectual property against clones, including a 2012 copyright ruling against the developer Xio Interactive; when Rogers took over, she turned that defensive posture into a strategy of expansion through licensing.[2] "For me it was important to expand the brand beyond video games," she said in 2026.[2] The company does not build games in-house: Rogers has described it as a licensing business that partners with outside developers, whom she calls "the subject matter experts", and with makers of consumer products.[14][6]

Video games

Under Rogers, the company licensed new versions of the game including Tetris Ultimate, Tetris Effect and Tetris Effect: Connected, as well as Tetris 99 and the Puyo Puyo Tetris crossover series.[3][15][12] She has cited Tetris Effect as "a perfect example of [how you can] iterate on a game that's 40 years old, and make it cool, and make it something that connects you to a new audience".[5] The licence for the official mobile game moved from Electronic Arts to N3TWORK in 2019 and then to PlayStudios in 2021.[2] She has said the company's aim is for the game to be present "wherever games are played", and in 2024 cited its integration in the Mercedes-Benz EQS electric car, adding that the game was "already in airplanes".[12]

In a 2019 interview with GamesIndustry.biz marking the game's 35th anniversary, Rogers said the company's focus was "about going beyond gaming and making Tetris a lifestyle. That is what we've been working on for the last few years."[3] By November 2020 the University of Hawaiʻi's entrepreneurship centre described the brand as having 90 licensing partners in electronics, toys, apparel and lifestyle goods.[7]

The Tetris film

Rogers was an executive producer, alongside her father and Pajitnov, of Tetris, an Apple Original Films thriller directed by Jon S. Baird from a script by Noah Pink, with Taron Egerton as Henk Rogers.[8] The film premiered at the SXSW Film and TV Festival in Austin, Texas, in March 2023, and was released on Apple TV+ on March 31, 2023.[8] A young Maya Rogers is played in the film by Kanon Narumi.[6] GamesIndustry.biz reported its production budget as $80 million.[16]

Rogers said in 2026 that the project came about after a director publicly said he wanted to make it, and that she saw it as "a human story and ... a friendship story" about her father and Pajitnov.[14] She has called making the film one of her proudest decisions: "It was the first movie of its kind that talked about the people behind the video games."[6] She has said its value to the brand was hard to quantify, but that it made people realise "Tetris is not just a game that came out forty years ago".[14]

Fortieth anniversary and consumer products

The game's 40th anniversary in 2024 was marked with a series of licensing deals. On June 6, 2024, the company announced the first branded add-on on the Minecraft Marketplace, followed by a Tetris and Minecraft downloadable content release on July 30, 2024; Rogers said the aim was to "innovate while preserving the core elements" of the game.[17] In October 2024 Spin Master and The Tetris Company announced a range of Tetris board games, puzzles and cards, arranged through the licensing agency IMG, with the first products released in 2025.[18] The range later included a 676-piece puzzle, a board game for two to four players and a Tetris-themed Rubik's Cube.[19] The streetwear label The Hundreds released a "Future Vintage" capsule collection marking the anniversary.[20]

Other licensing deals under Rogers have included a 7-Eleven handheld game shaped like a Slurpee cup and a McDonald's China promotion in 2023 that turned the game into a puzzle made of Chicken McNuggets. Rogers admitted the McDonald's product "looks very funky", but said it sold out within 48 hours.[2][14]

Red Bull Tetris and La Poste, 2025

In 2025 the company ran Red Bull Tetris, a six-month global competition with Red Bull. According to the company, it covered 60 countries and more than seven million qualifying games, ending in a world final at the Dubai Frame in December 2025 in which the last match was played on a display formed by more than 2,000 drones.[19][21] Rogers told Variety it was "the biggest Tetris Live event that we've done to date", and that it followed an earlier Red Bull collaboration on a game called Tetris Mind Bender.[1] She described Tetris as well suited to competition because "It doesn't require language. It's global. Anybody can play it, and it's a safe game. There's no violence."[1]

Also in 2025, the company announced a collaboration with the French postal service La Poste, which said that a Tetris-inspired approach to loading parcels had raised the number of parcels per truck from 1,500 to 4,500 and cut more than 15,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions a year. Rogers and La Poste's chief executive, Philippe Wahl, presented the project at VivaTech in Paris on June 13, 2025, and La Poste issued Tetris-themed stamps.[22] Other releases that year included Puyo Puyo Tetris 2S for the Nintendo Switch 2, Tetris Time Warp on Netflix and a version of Tetris Effect: Connected on Amazon Luna.[19] The company also promoted Blue Scuti: Tetris Crasher, a documentary about Willis Gibson, the first player to crash the original NES version of the game, which premiered at the Tribeca Festival in June 2025.[23][24]

2026

In early 2026 Tetris became available on AirConsole, a platform that lets Škoda drivers and passengers in Europe play on in-car screens using phones as controllers. Rogers said the deal was about "meeting players in everyday moments and transforming parked time into shared entertainment".[25][26] In June 2026 she gave a keynote talk at the Pocket Gamer Connects conference in Barcelona, where she said that someone at the company kept a spreadsheet of all the Tetris games because "it's a lot".[14] On June 23, 2026, the French animation studio TeamTO and The Tetris Company announced Tetris: World Builders, an animated children's series in early development; Rogers said it would expand "the Tetris universe in an entirely new way".[27]

In September 2026, after the White House published a parody of the game called Build the Wall: Zombie Border Siege as part of a set of minigames about immigration policy, The Tetris Company said it was "not involved in the creation" of the game and that it took copyright infringement "very seriously". The parody was subsequently removed.[28] In 2025 Rogers said that Henk Rogers and Pajitnov remained "involved in all the major decisions", with Pajitnov closely involved in game design.[5]

Leadership and management style

Rogers has described her approach as protecting the game's core while expanding where it appears. "What we leave untouched is just as deliberate," she said in 2026. "We honour the core gameplay while making it available wherever games are played ... We don't mess with what makes Tetris, Tetris."[2] At PGC Barcelona she said the company's test for any project, whether a game, film or board game, was whether it carried the same "joy" and felt "like Tetris", and that the classic marathon mode remained available in every version.[14]

She has said that licensing deals must be "a win-win": "if somebody's trying to just make money off of us and we're not getting a fair share ... it doesn't make sense", but equally the company does not "want to take a deal that's only benefiting us".[14] She has also said she counted turning down revenue as one of her key decisions: "saying 'No' to opportunities that could have had a big impact in terms of revenue, opportunity and awareness of the brand ... because we felt that the company didn't represent what we represent. We're an inclusive company."[6]

On intellectual property, Rogers has argued that the 2012 ruling established that "the look and feel of our gameplay itself is protectable", and has advised other studios to "protect your IP early and consistently". She added: "the strongest protection is not legal at all; it is making something people genuinely return to."[2] She has said protection matters more as generative AI spreads, not less, and that where the company finds infringement, "we take it down".[14][5]

Rogers has said she raises gender balance with licensees: "I always question when our licensing partners are developing a new Tetris game: how many women do you have on the team? Because our demographic is close to 50 [percent]."[13] According to GamesIndustry.biz she has increased the number of women working at The Tetris Company; she said that "When my father was running the business, it was more male. And now we have a lot of women."[5] She has described herself as "a humble servant" of the brand: "it's not about me, but more about what Tetris is and what it should be for the world."[6]

She has also promoted research by the psychologist Emily Holmes into whether playing Tetris can help people with trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder, and said in 2025 that the company was "working more closely with Professor Holmes" on next steps.[5]

Major deals and strategic decisions

Rogers's main strategic decisions as chief executive have been licensing and partnership agreements rather than acquisitions. Those reported in sources include:

  • moving the official mobile game licence from Electronic Arts to N3TWORK (2019) and then to PlayStudios (2021);[2]
  • the Tetris feature film with Apple Original Films, released March 31, 2023;[8]
  • the Minecraft Marketplace add-on and downloadable content (2024);[17]
  • the Spin Master toys and games agreement, announced October 22, 2024;[18]
  • the Red Bull Tetris global competition and the La Poste logistics collaboration (2025);[19][22]
  • the AirConsole in-car agreement and the TeamTO animated series (2026).[25][27]

The Tetris Company was named Best Interactive or Digital Brand at the Licensing International Excellence Awards in 2025 and again in 2026.[19][29] The company reports that more than 520 million copies of Tetris have been sold and that the game is available on more than 50 platforms.[26] The Tetris Company is privately held, and no revenue or headcount figures for Rogers's tenure were found in published sources.

Board memberships and outside roles

Blue Startups

Rogers co-founded Blue Startups in Honolulu in 2012 with Henk Rogers and Chenoa Farnsworth of Hawaii Angels. It was set up as a public-private partnership funded by the State of Hawaii, the Hawaii Technology Development Corporation, The Tetris Company and private investors, with the aim of diversifying Hawaiʻi's economy beyond tourism.[9] The accelerator invests up to $250,000 in companies and aims for half of them to be founded and led by women; it describes itself as a women-led organisation.[9] Rogers is listed as co-founder and partner, and has worked on its investment strategy and business development.[9][7] In 2019 Blue Startups received the Investor of the Year award from the Hawaii Venture Capital Association.[7] In 2025 Rogers cited Volta, a maker of electric vehicle charging stations, as one of its first investments.[5] Gold House reported that it had supported more than 157 companies.[15]

American Red Cross

Rogers joined the board of the American Red Cross in Hawaiʻi and became vice chair on July 1, 2021, under chair Jon Mauer.[30] She succeeded Mauer as board chair for the fiscal year beginning in July 2023.[4] In that capacity she was quoted in August 2025 welcoming the appointment of Molly Schmidt as chief executive of the Red Cross Pacific Islands Region.[31] She has also been involved with the Red Cross's Tiffany Circle, a network of women donors.[3]

Other boards

In 2020 Rogers was listed as a board member of the Kapiʻolani Medical Center for Women and Children, the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center and the Women's Fund of Hawaiʻi.[7] The Cinemaholic also listed a board seat at the Chamber of Commerce Hawaii and membership of the U.S.-Japan Council.[3] Gold House's profile lists her as a board member of Cushing Academy in Massachusetts, where she had earlier given a talk.[15][3]

Controversies

In August 2023 the journalist Dan Ackerman, author of the 2016 book The Tetris Effect: The Game That Hypnotized the World, sued Apple, The Tetris Company and others in federal court in Manhattan, alleging that the film had copied his book. His complaint said he had sent a pre-publication copy of the book to The Tetris Company in 2016, that the company refused to license its intellectual property for it and sent a cease-and-desist letter, and that Rogers and the screenwriter Noah Pink began adapting the book without his consent in 2017.[16] Rogers was among the defendants.[32]

In March 2025 US District Judge Katherine Failla dismissed the case, finding no substantial similarity between the book and the film because factual elements, historical events and real people are not protected by copyright; all claims were dismissed with prejudice.[32][33] Ackerman's lawyer called the decision "flawed" and said he would appeal.[33]

Remarks on women and diversity programmes

In a September 2025 interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Rogers said she had experienced sexism in the industry and that people "see a youngish looking female, and they don't believe you ... that you run Tetris". She said "Men show up to the table and they're kind of winging it ... Women show up overqualified", and that diversity, equity and inclusion programmes had been "so important to have" even though they were being questioned in America. "There needs to be something that is almost enforced to make sure that there are enough women in the industry," she said.[5] TheBlaze reported the interview under the headline that she had admitted "purposely hiring more women", and described some of her remarks as "strange claims".[10]

Personal life

According to The Cinemaholic, Rogers has chosen to keep her personal life private.[3] She has said that she shares her father's interest in the environment, and has called climate change and sustainability "such a big factor" for her personally.[5][12] She has said her own nostalgic version of the game is the Game Boy and the NES.[12][13]

Recognition

  • 2025: Vanguard Award, Women in Toys, Licensing & Entertainment (WiT), presented at its 20th Wonder Women Awards in Los Angeles on September 11, 2025. The company described it as the award's first presentation.[34][19]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Maas, Jennifer."Tetris CEO Maya Rogers on Teaming With Red Bull for World Finals in Dubai, Expanding Brand for Next-Gen Consoles". November 14, 2025. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 Ahmad, Mariam."Maya Rogers on keeping Tetris immortal". PocketGamer.biz. June 12, 2026. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  3. ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 Prasad, Sumith."Maya Rogers: Where is Henk's Daughter and Tetris CEO Now?". The Cinemaholic. March 31, 2023. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 "American Red Cross of Hawaiʻi has new board chair and board members". July 23, 2023. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  5. ↑ 5.00 5.01 5.02 5.03 5.04 5.05 5.06 5.07 5.08 5.09 5.10 5.11 5.12 5.13 5.14 5.15 Packwood, Lewis."Tetris Company CEO Maya Rogers on why we need more women in the games industry". GamesIndustry.biz. September 23, 2025. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  6. ↑ 6.00 6.01 6.02 6.03 6.04 6.05 6.06 6.07 6.08 6.09 6.10 6.11 6.12 6.13 6.14 6.15 Kaser, Rachel."How to bring a legacy brand into the future: BOSS Mode with Maya Rogers". GamesBeat. September 2, 2026. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 "Entrepreneurship Live with Maya Rogers". Pacific Asian Center for Entrepreneurship, Shidler College of Business, University of Hawaiʻi. November 19, 2020. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 "Apple Original Films celebrates world premiere of 'Tetris' with star Taron Egerton at SXSW". March 17, 2023. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 "About". Blue Startups. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Chapados, Andrew."Tetris CEO admits to purposely hiring more women: says women are 'overqualified,' while men are 'winging it'". September 27, 2025. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  11. ↑ "Henk Rogers Shares His Incredible Journey In New Book: The Perfect Game, Tetris: From Russia With Love". The Tetris Company. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 "Why the 'perfect game' is still with us decades later: Tetris interview". GamesBeat. September 3, 2024. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 Schmidt, Chantelle."Tetris CEO Maya Rogers Shares Why "We Need More Women" In Gaming". Refinery29 Australia. March 12, 2026. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 14.4 14.5 14.6 14.7 Ahmad, Mariam."Unpacking the Tetris licensing playbook with Maya Rogers". PocketGamer.biz. June 18, 2026. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 "Maya Rogers". Gold House. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 "Author sues Apple and The Tetris Company for reportedly adapting book without consent". GamesIndustry.biz. August 10, 2023. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 "World Tetris Day: Press Release 2024". The Tetris Company. June 6, 2024. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 "Spin Master and The Tetris Company Team Up to Bring Tetris Gameplay to Life with New Puzzle and Game Lineup". The Tetris Company. October 22, 2024. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 19.2 19.3 19.4 19.5 "The Tetris Company Celebrates a Landmark Year of Global Growth, Cultural Impact, and Real-World Innovation in 2025". The Tetris Company. January 5, 2026. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  20. ↑ "The Hundreds and Tetris Launch 'Future Vintage' Capsule Collection". The Tetris Company. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  21. ↑ "Tetris and Red Bull Take Competitive Gaming to New Heights". The Tetris Company. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 "Tetris Partners with La Poste Groupe to Deliver Innovation and Sustainability Across France". The Tetris Company. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  23. ↑ "Celebrating World Tetris Day With An Exciting Lineup of Announcements". The Tetris Company. June 6, 2025. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  24. ↑ "BLUE SCUTI: Tetris Crasher the Documentary". The Tetris Company. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 "AirConsole Launches with Škoda, Introducing a Škoda-Exclusive In-Car Tetris Experience". The Tetris Company. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  26. ↑ 26.0 26.1 "The Tetris Company Celebrates World Tetris Day with New Ways to Play, Global Fan Activations and Award-Winning Partnerships". The Tetris Company. June 5, 2026. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 "TeamTO and The Tetris Company Announce Animated Series "TETRIS: WORLD BUILDERS"". The Tetris Company. June 23, 2026. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  28. ↑ "The Tetris Company says it was "not involved in the creation" of White House parody, takes "copyright infringement very seriously"". GamesIndustry.biz. September 8, 2026. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  29. ↑ "Tetris Named Best Interactive or Digital Brand for Second Year Running". The Tetris Company. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  30. ↑ "Maya Rogers". Maui Now. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  31. ↑ "The American Red Cross Names Molly Schmidt as CEO of the Pacific Islands Region". American Red Cross. August 19, 2025. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  32. ↑ 32.0 32.1 "Loeb Secures Dismissal of Copyright Dispute Over Apple TV+ Film "Tetris"". Loeb & Loeb. March 6, 2025. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  33. ↑ 33.0 33.1 Sellers, Dennis."Lawsuit accusing Apple of ripping off a book about Tetris dismissed". March 7, 2025. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
  34. ↑ "Tetris CEO Maya Rogers Honored with Vanguard Award". The Tetris Company. Retrieved November 12, 2026.
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