By Tobore Olorogun

After receiving a gift of $22.8 million from the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation in 2014, Georgia State University opened the new Creative Media Industries Institute. The institute was established to give students a creative space to learn, build and collaborate with other students and teachers in different departments. It offers disciplines such as esports, game testing, film, research groups and much more.

With a such an elaborate structure and fine wired core, the institute is executively directed by Brennen Dicker. Dicker boasts 20 years of professional film and video experience and brings that depth to Georgia State’s CMII. He previously worked as the general manager of Atlanta operations at SIM International. He worked with the likes of HBO, Warner Bros, Netflix and many more to provide such heavyweights with production and post-production services while also providing a variety of leading-edge data management processes. Before this position, he was the Director of Sales for creative posts at Crawford Media Services, Inc. where he led the sales team working with clients from studios, agencies and corporations around the United States.

Dicker has clearly held many professional and top managerial roles, showing how adept and skilled he is, and ready to drive the CMII forward, but I was able to sit and talk to the Director to find out more about him, deeper than just the business side of him.