Tetris CEO Maya Rogers Shares Why “We Need More Women” In Gaming

Maya Rogers has been the CEO at Tetris since 2014. Her father, Henk Rogers, founded The Tetris Company with Tetris creator Alexey Pajitnov back in 1996 — a partnership so huge that Apple TV+ even made a movie about it. But while Maya absolutely grew up around Tetris because of her father’s company (an actor even plays a younger version of her in the film), she doesn’t believe that her position at Tetris was something necessarily set in stone for her. “I don't think I was groomed to become who I am today,” she tells Refinery29 Australia during the 2025 Red Bull Tetris Semi Finals in Dubai. “But, you know, different circumstances led to another, and I had an opportunity to come work for him, and that I did.”

Gaming has traditionally been considered a male-dominated industry. The 2024 Australian Game & Development Survey showed that women working in the gaming industry sat as low as 22%, and only 4% identified as transgender, non-binary or gender diverse. On the contrary, the 2025 Australia Plays report, as reported by Screenhub, revealed that 51% of Australian video game players are female. It’s a figure that matches US research closely, showing the disparity between women in the gaming population versus in the workforce.

As a woman in a leadership position herself, Maya ensures she’s influencing and questioning those within her industry when it comes to other female roles within the gaming landscape. “We're half the population, and we bring in a lot of money into the industry, and so 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[%].”

While Maya believes there needs to be more opportunities for women in gaming industry positions, she does feel change on the horizon. “I've been in the industry a long time, and definitely there's more women in leadership roles,” Maya explains, noting the recent appointment of Devon Pritchard, the first woman to hold the title of President and CEO of Nintendo in America. “That's huge coming from a company like Nintendo. So we just need to see more of that.”

As I talked to Maya, we were just a day away from the Red Bull Tetris World Final in Dubai, where the best players from 60 countries battled it out to become the first-ever Red Bull Tetris winner in December 2025. Of the 60 finalists, seven were women — a number Maya would like to be higher for events like this, and gaming in general. 

“It comes from the top down, and it comes from the bottom up. I think we [need to] encourage more girls to get into games. There needs to be companies making executive decisions to make sure that there are more women in the executive roles,” she explains. Maya tells me that having Tetris partner with a globally recognised brand like Red Bull is positive in this regard because of the unparalleled exposure. “The Red Bull partnership is amazing because it reaches so many different people around the world.” Almost 14 billion Red Bull cans were sold in 2025 alone.

The reason the partnership works so seamlessly is because Tetris transcends generations and genders, with Maya saying it’s “always been a brand that appeals to men and women and families.” For Maya, the nostalgic element of Tetris lives on her Game Boy. For me, at 35 years old,  it’s the Super Nintendo. “It really depends on who you ask,” she explains to me. “If you're younger, maybe you played on the DS or maybe on the mobile phone. We definitely see a core group of users that have grown up with the game like I have.”

What’s interesting, though, is that Maya tells me Tetris’ biggest demographic is 18-25 year-olds. “We’re really proud of keeping Tetris evergreen,” she says. “We make sure that we're available on every platform, every console where there is a game to be played.”

It’s a sentiment that filled the air at the Red Bull Tetris World Final, where two finalists played on a drone-powered game within the iconic Dubai Frame, as a crowd of gamers cheered on the history-making moment. Everyone knows Tetris.

There is a universal, genderless love for this game which has resonated with so many. “We’re a game that brings everyone together,” Maya confirms. And while the gaming industry at large needs more women at a decision-making level to reflect the audience playing them, the appreciation of the game — Tetris or otherwise — is absolutely there.