Meet the Team

Lyla Ross, Founder and Executive Director

Lyla Ross, LICSW, is a Seattle-based clinical social worker specializing in children, youth, and families. Her therapeutic work has focused on supporting youth involved in the juvenile justice system and providing family systems therapy in private practice.

In 2012, Lyla combined her expertise in social systems with her family’s businesses—Card Kingdom and Mox Boarding House—by founding their corporate giving program, Engage. This initiative emphasized a thoughtful, community-centered approach to philanthropy, listening to patrons and employees to guide giving efforts. Through its flagship event, The Gauntlet—an annual board game charity tournament—and other initiatives, Engage raised over $1 million for nonprofit organizations locally and nationally.

Today, Engage has grown beyond its beginnings as Card Kingdom’s corporate giving arm and has become Gamers Engaged, an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit since 2021. As Founder and Executive Director, Lyla is passionate about building cross-sector collaborations between the games industry and education, therapeutic gaming, game design, workforce development, and philanthropy. Gamers Engaged is committed to driving collective impact across these sectors—strengthening communities both locally and beyond.


Board Members

  • Derek has been with Gen Con LLC since 2026. They currently serve as the Director of Events. Prior to this, Derek held the positions of Senior Event & Program Manager (2018-2020) and Event Programming Manager (2006-2018). Derek has also worked as a freelance Event Consultant since 2013, offering services such as reviewing company presence at events, managing on-site event presence, and overseeing staff and volunteer pool during events. Derek also served as the Director of Programming at Anime Boston (2001-2006) where they supervised a large volunteer staff, coordinated corporate and attendee involvement in events, and secured premieres and permissions for video screenings. Derek's professional experience also includes a role as a Project Manager at RomNet (2000-2005), where they designed and implemented procedures for support incidents, coordinated with clients for data reports and support customization, and compiled technical support reference materials. Derek attended Boston University.

  • Paul Peterson started his career as a game designer in the card mines of Wizards of the Coast in 1994. There he worked on almost a dozen collectible card games including Magic: the Gathering, Pokemon, and Harry Potter. Since then he has bounced back and forth between the worlds of electronic and tabletop gaming, and his credits include games for PC, mobile, and Facebook as well as numerous card and board games including Guillotine, Smash Up, and Unexploded Cow.