Mobile publisher Glu has announced that former sales director Olivier Bernard has been appointed as the general manager for the EMEA region with immediate effect.

Bernard has been at Glu for three years, having initially joined as territory manager for France and the Benelux region. He was then made EMEA sales director back in February 2008, when EMEA MD Frank Keeling described him as an "exemplary leader".

"I'm very proud to take this opportunity within Glu and look forward to leading our EMEA organisation," Bernard told us in a statement.

"Our focus and knowledge for the future is to continue to implement the expansion of Glu's high-quality gaming experiences across the widest range of platforms."

The move follows an attempt by the publisher to refocus development on smartphone formats, Glu intending to target both Android handsets and Palm's Pre in the near future.

It's been a turbulent time overall for one of the west's largest mobile publishers, EMEA MD Keeling having left the company back in September last year.

Speaking to PocketGamer.biz yesterday, Glu CEO Niccolo de Masi responded to claims that the outfit had also been slow to respond to emerging smartphone markets by stating that the future looks bright.

"We're in the middle of the storm at the moment, but over a three to five year period we expect the market to grow multiple times and see our revenues in the hundreds of millions of dollars," he said. "I'm very optimistic."