Kellee Santiago is a
video game designer and
producer, and the co-founder and former president of
Thatgamecompany. Santiago was born in
Caracas,
Venezuela and was raised in
Richmond, Virginia, where she played video games from a young age and was encouraged by her
software engineer father to experiment with computers. During college at the
Tisch School of the Arts of
New York University, she became active in experimental theater, and intended to pursue it after earning a
master's degree in the
Interactive Media Program of the
School of Cinematic Arts at the
University of Southern California. While there, however, she became involved in video game design, and produced
Cloud, developed by
Jenova Chen and a student team. Its success sparked her and Chen to found
Thatgamecompany upon graduating, and she became the president.