MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
In MCV’s weekly roundup of the latest personnel news and hottest job opportunities, Asda hires a new games boss and we look at the best vacancies.
AMAZON HIRES ASDA’S LOCKE
Asda Direct’s trading director Frazer Locke has joined Amazon as its new head of games. Locke’s role at Asda is now being handled by Stephen Langford.
Locke is taking the role previously held by Amazon veteran Graham Chambers, who departed the firm in September last year.
Chambers had spent five years at Amazon but left last year to take up a role at Dundee-based mobile firm, Tag Games.
Locke’s career in retail has spanned 20 years and included stints at Dixons, Comet, and Toys R Us, mostly involved in the video games category.
He joined Gamestation in 2007 as online commercial manager and, a year later, was promoted to head of Gamestation Direct and third party buying. He joins Amazon from his role as Asda’s online trading director. Before that, he was head of online for Asda’s music, video, games and books division.
Other roles in retail included stints at the Arcadia Group and ScrewFix.
TOP VACANCIES – week beginning April 8th, 2013
via OPM Recruitment – Business Intelligence Engineer, London, Games Studio
Turner Broadcasting – Associate Producer
Senior Product Manager, Digital Branding, Germany
For more vacancies,head to MCVUK.jobs
PERSONNEL NEWS
Hilco’s Topping to lead HMV
The entertainment chain will emerge from administration, having been acquired by Hilco, and will now be led by Ian Topping.
Hilco CEO Paul McGown will be the company’s new chairman. New boss Topping was previously at Hilco and is also the former CEO of Steinhoff Group.
This is an exciting investment for the Hilco team and we will be able to use some of the developments already progressed in Canada to restore HMV to health,” said Topping.
The reaction of the British public to the administration of HMV shows a strong desire for the business to continue to trade and we hope to play a constructive part in delivering that.”
Konami’s Yapp joins Gaikai
Careen Yapp has joined Gaikai as VP of business development and account management. Yapp was VP of acquisitions and franchise development at Konami Digital Entertainment.
In the new role, she will be supporting new business development activities. This includes acquiring partners and content for Sony’s future cloud services. She also has experience from 15 years at companies D3P and THQ.
We are delighted to have Careen join Gaikai,” said Robert Stevenson, chief business officer at Gaikai. Her strong background in both business and gaming will add further depth to our team.”
PLAYFIRST HIRES VETERAN DEVELOPER HALL
Tom Hall?has joined mobile developer PlayFirst as principal designer. Hall recently worked as creative director at Loot Drop, before leaving to form his own studio Pieces of Fun.
We are adding an industry superstar to our team who has demonstrated the prowess of his talents over the years,” said CEO Marco Demiroz.
