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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Xsolla: Former Epic Games director David Stelzer has been appointed president at the payments and web shop giant. Stelzer’s games career has taken in stints at Sega and SouthPeak Interactive, and he also headed up the games wing of Creative Artists Agency.
Prior to Xsolla, he spent eight years at Epic, first as head of the Unreal Game engine business and later as director of Unreal Engine business development and licensing.
Tripledot: The Woodoku and Triple Tile maker added a whopping 25 new staff during October and November.
Alot of them are in the art department, including: ex-Playtika artist Alex Golub (senior technical artist), former Socialpoint, Outfit7 and Omnidrome artist Daniele Verzini (lead game artist), Adinda Maya (storyboard artist), Ewa Kowalewska-Olczak (graphic designer), Leonardo Fernandes (motion designer), Muhammad Fadel Raihan (2D artist), Nono Mulyadi (VFX artist), Revyra Phoebe Fransiska (junior technical artist) and Novita Adeputri, Cindy Sonia Natalia and Ivana Budiyanto (all junior 2D artists).
In product and marketing, there’s ex-Zynga and Gram marketer Ben Barta (senior growth manager), Glu and EA veteran Ilya Buber (associate product director), ex-Voodoo and Homa marketer Jérémy Leone (marketing manager), Oz Myerson (product manager), Ferina Ferdianti (project manager) and Fardhan Sudjono (junior level designer).
And in engineering, there’s Renjith Lal (lead Unity software engineer), Dady Darmawan and Greg Farkas (Unity engineers), Dzianis Karbouski and Kiryl Predkel (QA automation engineers), Maciej Ziolek (Ruby engineer) and Farhan Sarasin (sound engineer).
Voodoo: The hybridcasual game-maker has hired Omri Arad as studio director. Arad joins the French firm having previously worked at Playtika, where he was director of product, and SciPlay, where most recently he was director of monetization.
Gameloft: The maker of Disney Dreamlight Valley has appointed Iman Taeb as lead producer. Taeb has previously held senior product and leadership roles at Amanotes, Vulcan Labs, and most recently Storms.
Sunday: The hypercasual game-maker has hired three new staff. Sofia Senatorova is now publishing manager, and moves over from PlayEmber where she was an ecosystem designer. Senatorova has also previously worked at Coda Labs, BoomHits and TapNation.
Sunday also appointed Suyash Tiwari as junior business development manager, having previously worked at Voodoo as a business development associate. Alice Winteler also joins as game design intern.
Hutch: Two newbies at the UK-based racing studio: Charlie Mason and Luke Day, both engineers. Day joins from Hungry Shark maker Ubisoft London, where he was junior gameplay programmer.
Trailmix: The Supercell-owned studio has appointed Nikita Gorokhov as marketing data scientist and Tegan Mayo as office coordinator.
Gram Games: Three more new starters for Gram in November: Eunice Cruzabra (senior 2D game artist), Daiany Antunes (senior game artist) and Özdemir Küçükali (senior UA specialist).
Cruzabra moves over to Gram from Doomwood Digital Media, Antunes makes the switch from Fanatee and Küçükali joins from Vertigo Games, where he was senior UA manager.
Tactile Games: The Lily’s Garden maker has hired a new senior data analyst, Yarden Peled, who moves from a similar role at Playtika, where he worked on Seriously’s Best Fiends.
Tilting Point: The prolific publisher has hired Dora Bontari as its new community manager. Barcelona-based Bontari moves from FunPlus, where she served in a similar role.
Gametion: The Ludo King maker has appointed Ramesh Naidu Pediredla as its new CMO. He joins from Empire Games owner Fabzen Games.
Sandsoft Games: Sean Johns has joined growing Saudi firm as senior IT manager. Among other roles Johns has previously worked at King as IT support manager and for the company that runs Mobile World Congress, GSMA.
