November 2025’s Movers and Shakers: Rovio’s VP of game evolution, rising the ranks at Roblox, and Rockstar snatches Rob Saunders from Apple

To keep you up to date with the latest movers and shakers in the mobile games industry, we've put together a regular roundup of the latest hires, promotions and, in some cases, exits.

If you've recently joined a company or bagged a big promotion, or you're an employer that's just made a hire, drop us an email at news@pocketgamer.biz.

Promotions, departures, and new opportunities

Rovio’s Matthieu Burleraux has been promoted to vice president, game evolution. This follows his five-year stint as senior director of live operations, during which Burleraux worked to drive Rovio’s games business together with parts of the organisation like finance and central tech.

Now, his new role will see Burleraux focus mainly on Angry Birds Friends, with the goal of driving and maintaining year-over-year growth. He will also help to grow Ruby Games and look for new opportunities in Rovio’s portfolio.

"I’ll be focusing primarily on Angry Birds Friends, working with a highly talented team, while also supporting Volkan Erinc in growing Ruby Games and collaborating with our colleagues in Barcelona," Burleraux posted on LinkedIn.

Apple veteran Rob Saunders has left the tech giant after 14.5 years, joining Rockstar as senior director, territory communications.

The shift-up comes after more than a decade in public relations at Apple. Saunders also brings more than seven years of experience at Nintendo to the role, having worked as head of communications in the Japanese giant’s UK branch.

Saunders specialises in PR and communications.

Key hire at Mega Rewards and rising the ranks at Roblox

Mega Rewards has made its first key hire in advertiser sales in Arikka Greene, who has joined as director of advertiser partnerships.

The Barcelona-based ads service has hired Greene for her many years of experience in the advertising space, including almost 14 years as founder, strategic talent acquisition at 3 Little Birds. More recently, Greene worked as a senior AI content and business development consultant.

Celebrating the hire on LinkedIn, Mega Rewards founder and CEO highlighted Greene’s "depth of experience, professionalism and leadership". These qualities are expected to be a major boon to Mega Rewards’ sales efforts.

Entering his fifth year at Roblox, Jim Greer has been promoted to senior director of game solutions.

In the role, he will run his own team, lead products focused on genre expansion, and partner with IP holders to bring more games to the platform.

"Given the explosive growth of the platform and the increasing power and sophistication of our engine, I believe that it's an amazing moment to make this happen," Greer posted on LinkedIn.

Public relations and partnerships at Qualcomm and Wildlife Studios

Bringing more than 12 years of B2B experience to her new role, Linda Chung has joined Qualcomm as public relations manager.

The position will see Chung work on-site in San Diego, California.

Her previous experience includes a three-year span at Zynga in external PR for game launches. Chung later founded Rock the Story, where she supported media campaigns for tech companies.

Luiz Piccini has been promoted to director of studio partnerships and publishing at Wildlife Studios, set to focus on identifying global mobile game makers looking for a publishing partner.

The transition follows a period of focus on growing Wildlife’s internal games.

"Wildlife has developed world-class UA and live-ops capabilities over the years, which helped us launch and grow amazing games. At this new role, I'll be leveraging these capabilities to help more games scale globally," Piccini posted on LinkedIn.

Hires, promotions, and job shifts

After three years away, Harley Homewood has returned to Team17 with the new title of general manager. He already has nearly 12 years of experience at the company.

Epic Games has hired Activision Blizzard veteran Leo Parrill as growth marketing copywriter, set to create copy for global campaigns.

Enrico D'Angelo has been promoted to chief business officer, head of economy products at Roblox, as he approaches his eighth year with the company.

Michael Benedosso has returned to his role as chief of staff at Google after over five years as global leader of its Veterans Network.

Mega Rewards has also hired Alejandro Ramírez, bringing two decades’ experience to his new role as CTO.

Unity’s latest layoffs impacted Ben Cloward, a veteran developer with over 25 years in the industry. He supported Unity’s Shader Graph team during his time at the company.

Laurent Pawlowski has joined Xsolla as director of platform and store relations, bringing experience from Samsung, Unity, One Store and more.

John Heinecke is stepping down from his role as Square Enix’s chief publishing officer this month, after joining the team in 2022.

Sensor Tower’s Aidan Sutherland has been promoted to senior account director, following his promotion to account director in March 2024.