MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
Here are the highlights from the recent industry hires and moves, as published in MCV’s September issue.
Streaming platform StreamElements has announced the addition of Jeff Skaggs and Daniel Cole to its brand partnerships team.
Cole joined as director of brand partnerships, based in London, coming from Outsiders Global where he helped build campaigns and marketing strategies for brands around gaming influencers and live events.
Skaggs joined StreamElements as VP of brand partnerships, and is based in Los Angeles. Prior to StreamElements, Skaggs was VP for West Coast sales at Vevo.
Former senior communications manager at Jagex Jon Wilcox has departed the firm to join Team17 as senior PR manager. Wilcox spent over six years at Jagex, having started as UK PR manager in 2013.
Aurore Dimopoulos has been promoted to head of learn content production at Unity, based in the firm’s Brighton office.
Dimopoulous had been a producer at Unity for the past three years, having joined the firm in 2012 as community manager. She said on Twitter: “I aspire to lead [the team] well, and spread what they create to new people and places.”
Curve Digital now has a VP of global marketing in the form of Ben Payne. Formerly head of esports at McLaren, Payne also spent almost eight years at Microsoft. He commented: “I’ve been lucky enough to work at some fantastic companies during my career – but my passion is for marketing games, and Curve’s portfolio and forthcoming slate really excites me.”
Go Editorial founder George Osborn has been appointed as Ukie’s head of comms, having joined the team earlier this year as the trade body’s 30 Years of Play campaign manager.
Former senior PR manager UK and EMEA at Capcom Laura Skelly has left the firm after 11 years of faithful service. She has now joined Microsoft as EMEA communications lead for Xbox games, services and hardware.
Mediatonic has hired Steve Tinkler as its new CFO. He previously held a series of senior finance positions, most recently as chief financial officer at CX agency Ember, helping the business achieve four-fold growth over a three year period and expand into North America.
Mediatonic’s co-founder Dave Bailey commented: “As we celebrate passing the 200 people milestone, our group is expanding overseas with operations now in London, Madrid and Tokyo. We’re delighted to welcome Steve onboard as CFO with his international experience building creative, people-focused companies as we look towards our next phase of growth.”
Jonathan Lopera is now head of communications for EMEA and APAC regions at Zynga, joining from Dimoso where he had been senior account director for the past four years. He also previously worked for Bandai Namco and Bossa.
Sarah Ross, VP and head of global communications, said: “Jonathan brings a wealth of experience across all platforms and various genres within mobile gaming. His appointment marks a key milestone in the evolution of our communications team, and we could not be happier to have him on board!”
Bastion has made a couple of new hires, with Emma Withington and Mark Pawluk appointed as account executives. Withington joined the team from Alfred where she worked across a number of major studios and titles, including most recently 505 Games’ Control. Pawluk was a comms apprentice at Warner Bros, working on EMEA campaigns for Mortal Kombat 11 and Hitman 2, among others.
MD Dean Barrett commented: “Emma and Mark are great additions to our growing team. Both are passionate gamers and creative communicators – which is handy as we have lots to keep them busy in the months ahead.”
Activision Blizzard has announced two new senior hires: chief marketing officer David Messinger and chief people officer Claudine Naughton. The latter joined the publisher from HR leadership roles within American International Group and replaces Brian Stolz, who moved to serve in a new role as a special adviser to CEO Bobby Kotick. Meanwhile, Messinger will work under Activision president and COO Coddy Johnson and moves into the company’s first corporate-wide CMO role to “oversee the global marketing operations across all of Activision Blizzard brands.”
FIFA boss David Rutter has been promoted to lead EA’s European developers as group general manager for EA Studios Europe. The promotion sees Rutter relocate to Sweden, where he will oversee development at DICE, Ghost Games, and Criterion. Rutter joined EA 12 years ago as a producer on FIFA 09.
Daniel Clough, previously COO at Jagex and head of Moshi Monsters at Mind Candy, has now joined Bossa Studios full-time as studio general manager, in order to “enable [Bossa] to
scale up [its] creative output and help turn hundreds of game jam ideas into a select few finished products.”
