A new face will be at the helm of Spil Games from 1 April 2015, as the Amsterdam-based publisher announced the appointment of Tung Nguyen-Khac as CEO.

Having previously held the chief executive position at German TV network ProSiebenSat.1’s gaming arm, Tung has a wealth of experience in gaming and media organisations.

The company was keen to stress that he is particularly strong in expanding business through organic growth as well as mergers and acquisitions.

For example, he acquired the PC assets of Aeria Games in 2014 for ProSiebenSat.1 to propel his company into the top tier of European publishing.

Hire and hire

It was his lead role in overseeing the development of app store success Mobile Football Manager GoalOne, however, that has now made him “crucial to Spil Games’ business strategy,” according to the company statement.

“I am deeply impressed with the strength and reach of Spil Games’ highly profitable web business,” Tung added.

“I want to use this strength - and in particular Spil Games’ 130 million user-base - to build a bridge into mobile gaming. I’m thrilled to be taking the lead in expanding Spil Games’ core business and building up a world-beating mobile games division.”

Reboot

Despite its large reach, Spil Games has struggled to make an impact in the native game ecosystem, notably as its history with web games encouraged it to standardised around HTML5 as a cross-platform technology.

That's something Nguyen-Khac has been bought onboard to deal with and something Spil has already recognised with a reorganisation in late 2014 to focus on publishing activity. 

Its Unsung Heroes initiative is the first examples of this new approach in action.