Ins and Outs – March 2019’s industry hires roundup

Here are the highlights from the recent industry hires and moves, as published in MCV’s April issue.

. Former marketing coordinator at Rewind Ben Maltz-Jones  has been appointed social media and marketing executive at Rebellion. He previously worked for the likes of Nintendo, OMUK and Ripstone.

. Improbable’s former chief creative officer, Bill Roper, has left the company for a new role at indie studio Author Digital as chief creative officer. In an interview with VentureBeat, Roper explained he wanted to return to making games.

. Haley Uyrus has returned to Mediatonic as marketing and communications manager, five years after a stint there as QA tester. Her previous experiences also include working at BeefJack and, most recently, at Failbetter Games for three years.

. Codemasters has a new director of communications as former EA head of communications Shaun White has joined from Gfinity. He commented: “I’m excited to have joined the highly talented team at Codemasters. Their racing titles set the benchmark for quality within the games industry and I’m looking forward to playing my part in the company’s continued success.”

. Dead Good PR has a couple of new recruits. Jake Kulkowski is the agency’s new media and influencer consultant, having previously been a content creator since 2015. Meanwhile, Lilian Escomel has also joined the Montreal Dead Good PR team as junior PR consultant.

. Jade Raymond has joined mega corp Google as a vice president ahead of the Stadia launch. Raymond left Ubisoft in 2015 to found EA’s Montreal studio, Motive, but left in a shock departure in October 2018 after its first project – Visceral’s Star Wars game – was cancelled.

. Pole To Win International has promoted Deborah Kirkham to the role of CEO. Previously, Kirkham was president and COO – a position she held for eight years. In her new role, Kirkham will be responsible for the company’s continued growth, focusing on R&D, and customer acquisition and retention.

. Former executive producer at Rovio and director of product at Big Pixel Studios Will Luton has announced the launch of his management consultancy for games, called Department of Play. It was actually silently founded back in 2018 and has already delivered projects for companies such as Jagex.

. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds creator, Brendan Greene, has stepped down from the battle royale’s development team to launch PUBG Special Projects. Relocating to Amsterdam for this new venture, he’ll be focusing on “building out an entirely new division to focus on research and game development.”

. Valve alumni Chet Faliszek has partnered with former Riot Games’ principal technical designer Kimberly Voll to launch new studio Stray Bombay, which will focus on cooperation. The team wants “to create games that give players a place to breathe and live in the moment. Games that tell stories knowing you are going to come back again and again, that change each time you play them without feeling completely random, and that help you feel like a real team that supports each other.”

. Associate editor Sam Loveridge has been promoted to editor of GamesRadar. Formerly gaming editor of Fandom, Loveridge previously held similar positions at Digital Spy and Trusted Reviews.

. GamesAid has appointed Altered Gene’s Des Gayle as its new vice-chair. Gayle first joined GamesAid in 2015. As a video game producer, Gayle’s professional experience includes work with EA, Microsoft, Crytek and Square Enix. He replaces outgoing vice-chair Christian-Peter Heimbach.

. David Bowman has joined Creative Assembly as studio development director. Formerly the VP of product at Darewise Entertainment and the VP of production at Telltale Games and Crytek, Bowman brings over 20 years of industry experience to this new role.

. Curve Digital has hired Michael Fisher as product manager.  Fisher has over six years of experience working in product management, QA and community management and joins from PQube where he had a focus on the Japanese games market. Marketing director Rose Buahin commented: “Michael is a strong addition to the team and we’re so pleased to have him on board.”

. GameStop has named George Sherman as its new CEO and member of the board of directors, succeeding Shane Kim, who has served as interim CEO since May 2018.

. Former associate PR manager at Creative Assembly Gemma Cooper has joined Bandai Namco UK as a PR manager. She said: “I had an amazing time at CA, but I’m incredibly excited to be moving on to Bandai Namco to work on a variety of fantastic titles.”