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Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime will retire in April 2019.
Nintendo announced that Fils-Aime – who plans to spend "more time with [his] wife, family and friends" – will be succeeded by current senior VP of sales and marketing, Doug Bowser on April 15th, 2019. Nick Chavez will, in turn, succeed Doug Bowser as senior VP of sales and marketing.
Fils-Aime thanked the Nintendo fan community via a video shared on Twitter, in which he called his successor "a passionate and powerful leader".
Nintendo fans, Reggie has a message for all of you. Please take a look. pic.twitter.com/EAhaEl5oEJ
— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) February 21, 2019
"Doug is a passionate and powerful leader, and a guy who in his youth probably spent too much time in front of a Donkey Kong arcade machine. Inside Nintendo, people already know him as a driving force, and you’ll come to see that too. And I ask you, with a name like Bowser, who better to hold the keys to the Nintendo castle?
"Doug has a strong relationship with Mr. Furukawa and all the teams at NCL and NoE, so I know that together our teams will continue to surprise and delight."
"Nintendo owns a part of my heart forever," Fils-Aime said. "It’s a part that is filled with gratitude – for the incredibly talented people I’ve worked with, for the opportunity to represent such a wonderful brand, and most of all, to feel like a member of the world’s most positive and enduring gamer community. As I look forward to departing in both good health and good humor, this is not ‘game over’ for me, but instead ‘leveling up’ to more time with my wife, family and friends."
Fils-Aime has spent over 15 years at Nintendo – which means he’s seen the GameCube, Wii, DS and 3DS, Wii U, and Switch come to market – and assumed the premier position of NoA president in 2006. Bowser, however, joined in May 2015 as VP of sales, before a quick promotion into his current role in August 2016. Before then, he spent many years in senior positions at EA.
"It has been my great fortune to work with and be mentored by Reggie for four years at Nintendo of America," Bowser said. "And rest assured, we will continue to build on his work to evolve and expand our brand, furthering Nintendo’s global mission of creating smiles. There are millions more of those to come."
