Ins and Outs: October/November 2022’s industry hires roundup

Here are the highlights from the recent industry hires and moves, as published in MCV/DEVELOP’s October/November 2022 issue. 

BRETT CLAXTON has left Social Chain, where he was head of gaming for sites like GameByte and FragHero. He worked at the company for over five years, and held roles like creative and partnerships manager and senior brand manager. He is currently looking for a new role.

TOM DOBSON-GUNN has joined Wizards of the Coast as its new marketing director for the EMEA regions. He comes to them from Games Workshop, where he headed up the global licensed marketing team for the Warhammer IP. Before that he worked in consumer products marketing on brands owned by companies like Disney and Paramount.

DANIEL ROGERS is also joining Wizards of the Coast, as director of business operations, leaving his role at NBC Universal as head of UK operations. Before joining the media industry, Dan was part of the telecoms industry where he managed business operations functions across EMEA & APAC.

 

CALLUM WALKER joins Airship Interactive as business development manager, having previously worked in director-level international sales within the automotive sector. Before working in sales, he also worked in communications and as a news writer.

 

GRACE SHIN joins BAFTA as its new games programme manager, where she will be designing year-round programme of games activities and events aimed at elevating the craft of video games and supporting games talent. Previously she worked at Ukie as policy and public affairs manager.

JENNIFER MOSELEY is joining Airship Interactive’s growing team as marketing manager. She has worked in PR and marketing for over ten years, and has worked with blue-chip clients including The North Face, Dr. Oetker, Vileda, and Hasbro Games.

HANNAH WRIGHT is Airship Interactive’s new talent acquisition partner. She joins the team from Universally Speaking, having previously worked within the energy sector before joining the gaming industry.

MICHAEL MCDONALD is Airship Interactive’s new senior character artist, having joined from Sumo Digital. Michael is passionate about all things art and video games. Before Airship and Sumo, Michael spent time at Playground and BillyGoat Entertainment.

JUDE O’CONNOR has joined in-game advertising and video game monetization company Bidstack as its new chief revenue officer. Jude has spent the last seven years of his career at AdColony, but has 20 years of experience in ad-tech. He will lead the US team across sales, publishing, marketing, and strategy.

SULAIMAN SARWAR has joined By Gamers, For Gamers as a full time member of staff, after excelling during his internship. Sully, who has recently graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University, is now part of the BGFG Digital Team and will be working on SEO.

JOE SHELTON has become a project office analyst at Sumo Digital. His role will see him help to facilitate end-to-end project delivery; from processes to technology. He previously worked at the Prometheus Group, coaching and mentoring their configuration team whilst managing their resources and project timelines.

DANIEL STEVENSON has taken on a new role at Sumo Digital, as a project development tools lead. He has been a member of Sumo since 2013, and before that was part of the Sheffield production team as a project manager.

SHAUN DOYLE has become a production assistant at Sumo Sheffield. He worked in public libraries for the last six and a half years, usually doing youth work volunteering, pantomime acting, podcasting, home DIY or just getting involved with his local community as much as possible.

WILL ROSE is now a Junior Programmer at Sumo Nottingham, having recently graduated University with several independent video game projects to his name. He joins the team following a placement developing computer games.

ALEXANDRU-IONUT MOCONOI has also joined the team at Sumo Nottingham as a producer. Before joining Sumo, he worked on projects at Ubisoft, Amber Studio, GoDaddy and Matchingham Games. He is also a graduate from the Academia de Studii Economice din București.

LEROY HINES is the latest Junior VFX artist at Sumo Nottingham, and comes to the team having worked on the Portal-meets-Halo indie shooter Splitgate for a year at 1047 Games. He graduated from Birmingham City University, where he studied video game development, 3D modelling and VFX.

KEVIN HAYES has joined Sumo Nottingham as a technical art director. He’s spent 22 years in the industry, mostly working in the fields of technical art and visual effects, including time at studios like Disney, LEGO, Microsoft, Bioware and most recently Studio Gobo.

DAMIAN HOSEN has become a studio design director at Sumo Leamington. This is actually his return to the company, as he previously served as design director on LittleBigPlanet 3 at Sumo Sheffield. In the past he has also worked at Hutch, NaturalMotion and PlayStation London.

ZOE ROWBOTHAM is also joining the team at Sumo Leamington as a junior programmer. She is a University of West England graduate, which is where she studied games technology. She also spent some time working full time at Sumo Digital for her undergraduate placement.

BOKUN AN has joined Sumo Newcastle as a junior character concept artist. He recently graduated from a masters at the University of the Arts London, where he studied character animation. He is also a big fan of League of Legends, and has posted lots of fan art for it online, some of which has even won prizes.

FELIX NEILA has become a Junior Programmer at Sumo Warrington. He has just finished his real time interactive simulation degree at the DigiPen Institute of Technology Europe Bilbao in Spain. While at DigiPen he was one of the team that developed Arclight Beat, a 3D platformer made in Unreal.

DIANA FLINDT has left Jagex, where she had been working as a content developer on RuneScape 3. She’s going to be joining the team over at Splash Damage, where she will now be a Narrative Designer on “something big and brand new”. How very secretive!

MILLICENT THOMAS has joined the PlayStation UK team as influencer manager, and is responsible for influencer relations and campaigns for first party titles across the PlayStation brand. She was previously export PR & marketing executive at Ubisoft, and has an extensive background in journalism and PR from her time as a freelance film critic and entertainment writer at GamesRadar+.

AL HIBBERD has joined Meta as product marketing manager. He was formerly at Frontier Developments, and joins Meta’s recently acquired Unit2Games studio team in a senior role, where he will be driving forward marketing and communications for the Metaverse publishing platform Crayta.

ALEX VERREY has taken on a new role as VP of PR and communications at Embracer Freemode, and is establishing a new team that will service their group of 12 companies and counting. Prior to being at Embracer, he was the director of global PR at Heaven Media. He has also worked in PR at several other companies, including Mad Catz, Big Boy PR and Little Big PR, the latter two of which he worked to build from the ground up.

Also joining the team at Embracer Freemode is GABRIELLE HIBBERD, who has taken on the role of Head of PR. She previously worked with Alex in publicist roles at Little Big PR and Heaven Media, before a stint as a senior account manager at Renaissance PR.

BRIAN BRIGHT is another newcomer to the team at Embracer Freemode, taking on a leadership position and bringing with him his experience and expertise from his many years at Activision Blizzard. Brian has worked on Call of Duty, Guitar Hero and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, and has over 40 game credits to his name, as well as ten video game related patents.

FRANK SAGNIER is now the non-executive chair of the board at Steel City Interactive over in Sheffield, taking on the role after 25 years at sports game publishers like Codemasters and Electronic Arts. It will likely be a very good fit for him, as Steel City Interactive are soon to release a boxing game that they have told MCV/DEVELOP is the “most ground-breaking and authentic boxing game in over a decade.”