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Wooga founder and CEO Jens Begemann departs after 11 years

Former Google head of games Nai Chang will takeover position in June

Wooga founder and CEO Jens Begemann departs after 11 years

Wooga founder and CEO Jens Begemann has announced he will leave the Berlin-based developer after 11 years with the company.

Begemann departs the role officially at the end of June 2020, where he will return to the world of entrepreneurship "to support young founders with angel investments", as well as reduce his work life to spend more time with his family.

Former Google global head of games on growth consulting Nai Chang will take over the position. Chang entered the games industry in 2013 and, apart from his time at Google, has held various leadership positions at Buffalo Studios, Zynga and NaturalMotion.

Alongside Philipp Moeser and Patrick Paulisch, Begemann founded Wooga in 2009 and has helped the social developer find strong success in recent times. Most notably, he helped usher in the acquisition of Wooga by Playtika in late 2018.

"Best moment"

"I believe the best moment for a founder to leave his company is when things are going really well," said Begemann

"Wooga is more successful than ever before. Our revenue has more than doubled since we became part of Playtika 18 months ago. Moreover, employee engagement and happiness is the highest it has ever been. Still, I did not take the decision to leave lightly."

Chang added: "Jens and the team have built something remarkable and I'm excited to become a part of it. The strong emphasis on company culture with its strong values is something that is particularly important to me."

"I'm looking forward to writing Wooga's success story further together with this team of incredibly talented people."

We spoke to Begemann to get more insight into why he's decided now is the time to move on from Wooga, and what he plans to do next.


Deputy Editor

Matthew Forde is the deputy editor at PocketGamer.biz and also a member of the Pocket Gamer Podcast. You can find him on Twitter @MattForde64 talking about stats, data and everything pop culture related - particularly superheroes.