Ins and Outs: December 2022’s industry hires roundup

Here are the highlights from the recent industry hires and moves, as published in MCV/DEVELOP’s December 2022 issue. 

ANA RIZOPOL has joined AdLiven as their new creative director, where she will be responsible for creating, planning and executing a new creative strategy vision for AdLiven. She brings with her a wealth of experience, having worked for over 16 years in the creative industries at places like Voodoo, Social Point, and Gameloft.

VIVIAN TIAN has joined Technicolor Games as vice president of operations. She’s a games industry veteran, having held previous management roles at Unity Technologies and Virtuos studios. She also holds a PhD from the Chinese Academy of Science’s Institute of Computing Technologies and is a published book author.

Also at Technicolor, HANNAH RAMSEY is the new vice president of human resources, and joins them after nearly seven years at Pearson learning services. Before that she worked at BT Telecommunications. She has a lot of experience in working with global businesses, and a history of ensuring that top tier talent is recruited and retained for her employers.

SOPHIE DE CHAMPLAIN has signed on as Technicolor’s senior legal counsel, and joins them after just over four years at Wildbrain Studios, who you might know for having worked on Peanuts and Teletubbies. Sophie loves both art and the legal system, and has been a member of the Barreau du Québec since 2012. She is also on the board of directors for Eastern Bloc and Western Front.

LISA NOLLER is Technicolor’s latest finance manager, and comes to them from the London Stock Exchange Group. She also has a masters degree, having received a distinction grade for her studies of accounting and finance at The London School of Economics and Political Science in 2018.

ANIKA NEGI was also promoted from her producer role within Technicolor Games, and is now the account management director after 10 years working for the company. She previously worked at a large animation studio called Xentrix Studios as a production assistant and coordinator back in 2011.

JAY CHO has left Jagex to join Lockwood Publishing. He was previously the lead producer on Old School Runescape, but will now take charge of Lockwood’s development teams and metaverse mobile game Avakin Life, among other projects.

IVEE FERIA-PADUA has also joined Lockwood, as their product director. In the past she has worked at Jagex, Playdeo, King and Ubisoft on games that have spanned many platforms and varied revenue models. She also volunteers her time as a mentor for the group Media Trust.

KETAN VACHHANI has also been recruited to Lockwood as director of cyber security. He previously worked at Investis Digital, and will now lead the LKWD product security team with his experience from over 20 years of work in web, enterprise IT & cloud security and information governance.

RAY WILLMOTT is starting a new job at Raw Fury this December as a brand manager for some of their new and upcoming game releases. He worked at Coatsink and Thunderful for the last two years, where he worked on The Last Hero of Nostalgaia, REPLACED, and the Jurassic World Aftermath Collection.

MATT SAUNDERS is now at Jagex, as its new vice president of marketing. He will oversee their marketing efforts going forward, supporting their portfolio of live-service game worlds like RuneScape. He has worked in the video game industry since 2013, primarily at companies focused on creating titles for the internet and mobile phones.

FREELAND COSTIN has joined Bastion as an account executive, leaving behind the world of tabletop marketing to market video games instead. In the past she’s worked with Corvus Belli, Free League Publishing and Wyrd Games, as well as putting her journalism skills to good use at OnTableTop.

RICARDO AGUIAR has also joined the team at Bastion, becoming one of their account executives after an internship at THREESIXTY, where he worked with brands like GoHenry and Avanti. He also recently achieved a BA in communication and media studies from the University of Chichester.

ALICE JOHNSON completes the trio of new account executives at Bastion, coming to them after an internship at Tiktok. She is also a full-time content creator, having worked with brands such as Disney, Marvel, Amazon before joining the marketing firm.

PAUL DHILLON is also at Bastion now, as an executive for the new influencer company Pinpoint. He used to work as a digital marketing executive in the travel Industry, and is very experienced at content marketing, SEO and website design. He also creates original music, and has worked on over 50 videos.

ASH HARVEY has joined 2K as a junior PR, comms and events manager for the UK, Ireland and export. He comes to them from Square Enix, where he was a PR executive. Before that, he had completed an internship at Activision.

SHELOMAN BYRD has joined Streamline Media Group as their new COO. You may know him as the executive producer of one of 2022’s most popular PC games, MultiVersus. If you aren’t familiar with that game, it’s a Smash Bros-alike where Batman gets to punch Rick Sanchez in the face.

KEVIN ADDLEY is now the senior vice president for Games, Entertainment, Technology and Sport at media company Future. He’s leaving Audible, where he’s helped to grow their UK business since 2012. Before joining Audible he was part of the management at their parent company, Amazon.

EMMA GLEDHILL has joined the Sumo Group as a senior HR advisor. She was previously a HR business partner for the Culina Group, working primarily in warehousing and logistics, and before that she worked in HR at the JLA Group. No, not the Justice League of America – we checked.

MANON TAMERUS is now at Sumo Sheffield, doing a year long internship as an assistant producer with the central art team. She is in her fourth year at the Breda University of Applied Sciences, and is studying creative media and games technologies.

SHEKHAR NALANAGULA has also joined Sumo Sheffield, as an animator. Until recently he was at Lunar Animation Ltd. In the past he has worked on feature films, shorts, TV shows, game trailers and other video games.

COLIN NICHOLLS is the latest lead level designer at Sumo Sheffield, coming to them with over 25 years of industry experience. He spent the last four and a half years at Ubisoft Reflections, working mostly on The Division 2.

JENNIFER BURBECK has become a producer at Sumo Sheffield, after eight and a half years at TT Games on the LEGO games. Before that, she spent a year and a half working on mobile apps and flash games.

SAURYA SAURAV is now a junior programmer at Lab42 Games. They used to develop mobile games in India, primarily with the Unity engine, and worked on big games like Vineyard Valley which have seen over a million downloads on the Google Play store.

GRAHAM MILLS has joined Sumo Leamington as an associate technical director. He spent the last two and a half years as a senior lead programmer at Ubisoft Reflections, leading a gameplay team in Newcastle on an unannounced AAA open world game.

CHRISTIAN WAIT is now an editor at Gamer Guides, after a three month stint as a gaming and tech SEO writer at GRV Media and HITC. He has a long history of being in the media, having once appeared on a live stand up Michael Barrymore VHS as a five year old. Christian also 3D prints and paints miniatures at @SaberMiniatures on Twitter.

YUJI AOYAMA just finished his masters degree in digital journalism at Goldsmiths, and will be taking on a paid marketing internship at YRS TRULY. He’ll be helping them with content creator activations and marketing campaigns. Interestingly, he once met the Emperor of Japan.

JACK ENGLAND will also join YRS TRULY, as one of their campaign managers working with the games industry. He’s leaving Way To Blue, where he was a senior account executive. During the Covid-19 lockdowns, he created and published his own card game.