Here every Monday, we’ve got the biggest moves and promotions from across the mobile games business, all in one spot.
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AppLovin: During its Q3 2023 financials AppLovin said its president and CFO Herald Chen will be leaving the position at the end of 2023. Chen will remain on AppLovin’s board of directors and serve as advisor to the new CEO, who has yet to be appointed.
The company’s current VP of finance and FP&A Matt Stumpf is now CFO, and vice president controller Dmitriy Dorosh has been designated principal accounting officer, both effective January 1, 2024.
Nexon: Junghun Lee will be appointed Nexon CEO in March 2024, the company confirmed last week. Lee currently serves as CEO of Nexon Korea and on Nexon’s board of directors, and his successor to lead Nexon Korea will be announced shortly.
He succeeds current representative director, president and CEO Owen Mahoney, who is vacating the role but will remain with Nexon as board director and senior advisor.
PlayStation: The console giant has hired Zynga, Garena and Rovio veteran Harsh Vardhan as senior product manager in PlayStation’s mobile division.
Hardhan is a former Deloitte analyst who was later appointed product manager on Wonka’s World of Candy at Zynga Bengaluru, later moving to Garena to work in strategic operations. He was most recently senior product manager on Rovio’s puzzle-and-decorate Moomin game.
Metacore: The Merge Mansion maker has made five more new hires. They are ex-Mind Candy and King art director Giorgia Arena (art lead), former Rovio community manager Maija Lahtinen (community manager), ex-Madfinger, Paradox and Wild Games designer Heikki Joas (game designer), Charlese Saballe (UX and player researcher) and Sini Väisänen (accountant).
Gram Games: Four new starters at the London and Istanbul offices of the Merge Dragons maker this week. Nazlı Mine Tülek joins from Siemens as software engineer, Erdem Kaya starts as game development intern, Katya Sievert is now production intern and former AdColony and Miri Growth UA manager Dicle Çağla Kınık joins as senior UA specialist.
PocketGamer.biz: The mobile games industry site has promoted Paige Cook to deputy editor. The move follows the appointment of new head of content Craig Chapple last week.
Beta Hat: The market research and strategy consultancy has announced that former EA, Scopely, Riot and Zynga marketer Jen Donahoe is now strategic marketing consultant at the firm.
Embracer: COO Egil Strunke has left the parent company of Coffee Stain, Deca and Easybrain to set up his own consultancy.
Redline Games: The Attack Hole maker has appointed Krishna Mehta as senior game designer. Mehta moves from CrazyLabs India, where he was senior game designer and product owner.
Bandai Namco Mobile: The Japanese giant has hired Varun Ramachandran as game designer at its Barcelona studio. He joins from Miniclip’s Lisbon office, where he was senior game designer, and has previously worked at GSN Games, RockYou and 99Games.
Jagex: The Runescape maker has promoted Anna Mostyn Williams to senior director of commercial.
Rocketship HQ: Virendra Shekhawat has been promoted to head of performance marketing and special projects at the UA agency.
