As 2023 races by, something we’ve been eager to cover more of is the vast movement in jobs taking place at the moment. The mobile game industry is huge, growing and strong as usual, so there's a lot to keep track of. Whether that’s new board members, executives or key team members, knowing who’s going where and doing what is key to understanding the industry.
That’s where this series of – hopefully many - articles covering hires, moves and more that are taking place across mobile gaming. We’ll give a brief overview of who these people are, what they’re doing and why we’ve added them to this week’s recap. Starting off today with…
Samantha Ryan leaves her group general manager role at Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts are undertaking a shuffle for its management team with longtime executive Samantha Ryan leaving her post as group general manager.
Rachel Franklin will take over part of Ryan’s responsibilities as the group executive in charge of Maxis and studio Full Circle. Franklin’s new role is as senior vice president and group general manager of Lifestyle Entertainment. Franklin was previously the executive formerly in charge of the positive play, a team of 20 who will now be disbanded and found roles across the company’s studios.
Catharina Mallet, general manager of Maxis, and Dan McCulloch, general manager of Full Circle, will report to Franklin. Franklin’s positive play group, which had about 20 people, will be disbanded and those workers will be attached to different studios.
Franklin’s experience covers beginning her career at Activision, running her own start up, work at cloud gaming company OnLive, leading The Sims 4 and Maxis before leaving EA to lead social virtual reality at Facebook. She returned to EA a few years ago to lead positive play and is now ready to resume her role as head of The Sims and more.
These latest changes come on the back of the company’s recent split into EA Entertainment (incorporating mobile) and EA Sports which themselves resulted in new roles and moves earlier this year.
Nazara subsidiary Nextwave Multimedia onboards Christopher Franklin as CEO
Nazara Technologies has appointed Christopher Franklin to lead its mobile gaming subsidiary Nextwave Multimedia.
Franklin comes with over 20 years of experience in the gaming industry following game designer roles at Ludia, Glu Mobile and being game design director for Electronic Arts.
He assumes the role from founder PR Rajendran, who will now become the company's board chairman.
Mobivity Holdings Corp to announce new chairman and CEO as Dennis Becker departs
The move was announced alongside a number of new senior executive hires.
Chairman and CEO Dennis Becker will leave the company before August 31, 2023. His direct replacement is yet to be announced.
Mobivity’s new leadership team now features, chief financial officer Will Sanchez from SaaS and biotech companies, vice president of engineering Asif Iqbal from T-Mobile, Nordstrom, and Walgreens, vice president of product Dan Grigorovici from a variety of AdTech and Martech global leaders, senior director of brand strategy Beatrice Olivas - a seasoned AdTech veteran
These leadership appointments follow the promotion of Kim Carlson to chief operating officer. Carlsonjoined Mobivity as chief revenue officer in late 2022, has been growing Mobivity’s Connected Rewards among mobile game marketers with daily install volume increasing more than 900% year to date.
Yasin Hatiboğlu has taken up a new role as data analyst at Supercell
Previously Hatiboğlu held similar roles for Seriously Digital Entertainment before becoming a senior product manager at Rovio.
He announced his new position in a LinkedIn post here.
Stephen Routledge joins Supercell as game lead
“After several great years in Barcelona and many happy memories it's time for a new adventure - we recently moved to Helsinki and I’m starting a new position as Game Lead at Supercell!” he wrote in a LinkedIn post announcing his new position here.
Previously Routledge was VP of product and head of live games at Social Point and VP product at King.
Carson Taylor takes up new role at Samsung Electronics America as product strategy - gaming
Following previous roles as producer and project manager for the likes of Zynga, Electronic Arts and Riot Games, Taylor has announced (via a LinkedIn post here) his new role as product strategy - gaming at Samsung Electronics America.
Danielle Davis returns to Zynga in leading talent acquisition role
“I'm excited to share that I've re-joined Zynga! Leading Talent Acquisition for EMEA and NaturalMotion Games. I'm grateful for the opportunity to return to this amazing team and reunite with incredible colleagues,” writes Davis.
Previously she had held roles as senior manager, talent acquisition at Natural Motion and recruiting manager at Amazon games. She shared the news via a LinkedIn post here.
Erik Larsen becomes game director at Electronic Arts
Following roles at Playfirst and numerous roles within Electronic Arts such as senior product manager, player lifecycle producer and producer, Erik is beginning a new role as game director at Electronic Arts Capital Games.
Larsen announced the move via LinkedIn here.
See more of this month's movers and shakers here and here.
If you know of any mobile games industry job news that you think should be here, then don't hesitate to reach out to us at editorial@steelmedianetwork.com
