Improbable expands leadership team with new CCO and CMO

Improbable has welcomed former Disney VP Bill Roper (pictured left) and GitHub’s Jason Jhonson (pictured right) to its London leadership team. Roper joins the firm as chief creative officer, while Jhonson will be its new chief marketing officer.

In their new roles, Roper will be working with studios to looking to use Improbable’s SpatialOS and exploring new gameplay possibilities with them, while Jhonson will be responsible for driving adoption of SpatialOS and building the company’s brand as the leading distributed computing startup in the world.

Previously, Roper was vice president, head of Disney Interactive Central Creative with Disney Consumer Products and Interactive Media Labs, and has also worked as a creative executive at Blizzard Entertainment, where he was a key figure in the Warcraft, StarCraft and Diablo franchises. He’s also been CEO of Flagship Studios and CCO of Cryptic Studios.

Jhonson, meanwhile, was previously senior director of developer and product marketing at GitHub, where he was responsible for brand, product and developer marketing for over 22m developers. He’s also worked as a senior director in product marketing at Paypal and Yahoo.

Herman Narula, CEO and co-founder of Improbable, commented:Too often, startupstories focus on the founders. We are building a world-class team at Improbable. These two critical hires bring a wealth of experience and a record of success with some of the biggest names in entertainment and technology. We’re delighted to have them at Improbable, as we move into a new stage of our history.”

Roper said: "From building the worlds of Starcraft, Warcraft, and Diablo, to overseeing products based on Disney’s rich intellectual properties, I’ve always focused on the opportunities created by new technologies to design richer, deeper experiences. By enabling developers to transcend the limits of traditional server-based gaming, SpatialOS and Improbable are opening up new possibilities in game design. I’m greatly looking forward to exploring this new potential with developers.”

Jhonson added: It’s hugely exciting to be joining Improbable at this stage in its journey. The first games built on SpatialOS are entering the market, and the recent investment has raised the company’s profile. This is an opportunity to build a foundational developer platform, which could transform games and many other applications.”