Jenny Xu
Pronounced Jenny SHOE, Passionate about Fitness and Gaming!
About Me
Jenny Xu is a long-distance runner, fitness instructor, Forbes 30 Under 30: Games recipient, and CEO of Talofa Games. She started making games and running at age 12, and in her 14 years in the gaming industry, she’s shipped 10 titles on the mobile app stores with over 10 million downloads. She was the grand prize winner of the Niantic Beyond Reality Contest in 2019, right after she graduated from MIT studying Computer Science. She's also previously worked at Google, N3TWORK, and EA.
Awards, Talks, Articles, Books!
Awards: Game Changers 25 Top Innovative Gaming Startups (2025), The Game Awards Future Class (2020), DICE Scholar (2019), BostonInno 25 Under 25 (2018), Forbes 30 Under 30: Games (2018), Neo Scholar (2018), Greylock X Fellow (2018),
Adobe Research Women in Technology Scholarship (2017), MIT Outstanding New Leader Award (2017), International
Game Developer Association Scholar (2017), Box Engineering Diversity Scholarship (2016), Microsoft Xbox Game
Changer Award Winner (2016), NEWMAC Cross Country Academic All-Conference Team (2016), International Game
Developers Association Women in Games Ambassador (2016), ESA LOFT Video Game Innovation Winner (2015)
Books I'm in
I've given a few different talks and interviews, and here are some of them! I am embarrassed looking back at them but hopefully there is some value you get from them.
Other Talks and Articles
- Make it fun: Video games to help you with your fitness goals
- Navigating the Storm: How Creative-Level Attribution is Changing Mobile Marketing
- Celebrating the 2025 Game Changers —Adaptation and resilience
- BIPOC women leaders in gaming: Be audacious, and don’t stop creating
-How can you be wildly successful before 40?
- Leveling Up: Forbes 30 Under 30 CEO Jenny Xu on Building Worlds and Breaking Barriers (2024)
- Gaming for All: A Women in Games Celebration of Diversity in Games (2022)
- WWDD - Empowering Professionals Every Day! (2020)
- Gaper Podcast (2020)
- GDC (2020)
- Developer Profile (2019)
- Study Breaks (2018)
- Women Who Reign (2017)
- 17th Annual Women in Gaming Luncheon Encourages Women to “Be You” (2017)
- 2017 FloXC Countdown: #4 MIT Women (2017)
- Cupertino: Life-long gamer creates ‘Penguin Dodge’ mobile app (2014)
Things I'm proud of!
Abs With Jenny: Got certified as a group fitness instructor and ran 1,000 days of a 5-minute abs class consecutively from 2020 to 2023. Got 700+ people to join.
Boston Qualified for the Marathon 2:56 PR (6:42 pace)
Raised $6.3M in Venture Capital and had my game featured on the App Stores a few times
Studied Computer Science and ran D3 Cross Country/Track at MIT (ran 70 miles a week and ran Nationals)
Planned a surprise wedding in China for my parents for their 30 year anniversary
Say hi!
I love to talk about fitness, getting into the gaming industry, anime, the psychological thriller horror genre, GoPro filming, and food reviewing (I'm also Yelp Elite)!
© Jenny Xu