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Savvy Games Group: Brian Ward is stepping down as CEO of the Saudi-backed games conglomerate, with Turqi Alnowaiser, deputy governor of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, taking over as interim CEO. Ward had led Savvy since 2021, overseeing a roughly $38bn investment push into the games industry that included the acquisition of Scopely and stakes in companies including Nintendo and Embracer Group.
Supercell: Lasse Seppänen has left the company after seven and a half years, most recently as GM of Supercell London, to pursue new game IP ventures, with plans to start his own studio in 2027. Seppänen previously worked on Everdale, Hay Day and Boom Beach, and ran Supercell’s central game production services before integrating Supercell London following its acquisition of Space Ape.
Separately, Luran Zhang has joined as community manager after nearly four years at Lilith Games working on Rise of Kingdoms, and Mateusz Janczewski has joined as game producer.
King: David Howe has moved internally to product strategy director on the Candy Crush Saga team, after four months as head of operations on Farm Heroes Saga. Michael Stratton has joined as CRM director, and Paolo Daolio has moved into a product manager role on Pet Rescue Saga.
Zynga: Lee Donovan has moved to director of business operations after previously serving as associate director, business operations and senior manager, business operations. She’s just marked her fifteenth year with the company. Melih Yurduseven left a growth manager position at Leke Games to join as performance marketing manager.
Apple: Rafael Ferrer has joined as product manager for the App Store. Prior to this appointment, he worked as lead product manager at Blizzard. Hugo Landberg has left Telia after four years to join as business manager, App Store. He previously worked as project manager, group strategy.
Lion Studios: Tamara Feiman has been named CEO, taking over from Nicholas Le after six years at the company. Kimz Zhang has also joined as studio manager, focusing on partnerships with puzzle game developers across China and APAC.
Huuuge Games: After 12 years at King, mostly recently as senior product director, Luis Russell has started as VP product.
Voodoo: Eren Nalçacı has left his post as studio lead at Birch Games and started as Voodoo as general manager.
Playtika: Guy Bauer has moved from VP marketing at Whale Played to a new role as senior director of marketing for Slotomania. Tal Regev has moved internally from senior user acquisition manager to monetization manager.
Google Play: Wabantu Hlophe has started as global games business operations lead after joining the company last year as senior associate, central strategy & operations, gTech. Paul Shriver has also moved internally, moving from program manager, PMO, to product support manager.
Nordeus: The studio welcomed eight new joiners: Ana Getel (senior UI artist), Bogdan Vlajić (full stack intern), Danica Čudić (UI artist), Danilo Čogurić (junior software engineer), Milica Kričković (full stack intern), Stefan Božović (software engineer), Vuk Perišić (full stack intern) and Vukašin Marković (producer).
Trailmix Games: Shayan Amiri has moved into a senior product manager role after 18 months as senior economy designer of product. Before then, he worked at Product Madness.
Activision: Houston Whaley has been promoted to senior manager, mobile marketing, expanding his focus on go-to-market strategy for Call of Duty: Mobile. He previously worked as manager, mobile marketing, GTM and manager, mobile marketing, influencer.
Next Games: Shirin Hamidi has joined as senior game designer, moving on from Metacore.
Loom Games: Cansu Karahan Can has joined as people & culture manager, and Sila Turku Askin has joined as senior performance marketing manager.
Grand Games: Yigitkan B. has left Good Job Games, where he worked as a software engineer, for a software engineer role at Grand Games. Pelin Kiper has moved into a new role as UI artist after working as a UI intern for two months.
Tactile Games announced two new joiners in August, Berk Utancak as level designer and Stefan Jensen Petculescu as QA engineer. They previously worked at CBA Trade Group and IO Interactive, respectively.
PlaySimple Games / Modern Times Group MTG: Varun Mathure has joined as chief marketing officer of the Casual division, based in Singapore, as the company prepares for an IPO.
Scopely: Rodney Lopez has been promoted from strategic finance manager as corporate development manager. Before then, he was an investment associate at NXC and Alignment Growth.
Mattel: Scott Zoltan has been promoted to director & head of marketing, portfolio games. It’s his third internal move, with the most recent being senior manager, global brand marketing: Matchbox and Thomas & Friends.
Lessmore: Gregor Duddy has left his senior QA analyst role at Jagex to join Lessmore as senior QA analyst.
SciPlay: After three years as senior product manager of slots strategy, Kevin Mathews has shifted internally to become principal product manager based in Vegas.
Nexters: Aisen Syromiatnikov has joined Nexters as head of UA after almost 11 years at inDrive, most recently serving as head of digital marketing operations.
Miniclip: Bruno Ribeiro has moved from his co-founded company and COO role at Epic Win Publisher to join Miniclip as senior program manager.
