Ins and Outs – November/December 2021’s industry hires roundup

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

As we’re sure you’ve noticed by now, MCV/DEVELOP has a new editor in Richie Shoemaker. Shoemaker joins from Manchester’s BGFG, where he oversaw gaming content for the tech publisher’s flagship site, WePC. Previously he managed content for MY.GAMES, edited gamesTM magazine, and spent nine years partnering with CCP Games on various editorial projects.

After over three years at Ubisoft UK, Katie Laurence is moving over to Bethesda Softworks as communications manager, managing Bethesda’s games for the UK region. She will be working on new IPs like Starfield but also the GaaS games The Elder Scrolls Online and Fallout 76.

Joe Bognar is global communications manager at Koch Media’s Global Partner Publishing department. Bognar will be in charge of Koch Media’s global communication for Koch Media’s publishing partners and their products.

CI Games has announced that industry veteran Sam Sadeghi will be joining the company as the VP of Global Sales. Sadeghi comes from a sales position at SEGA, where he helped drive digital and physical sales across their vast catalogue, including many of their recent successes.

Miniclip has announced that chief strategy officer, Saad Choudri, who has been with the business since 2011, has been appointed CEO. Choudri has over a decade of experience from within Miniclip, and a background working in Sega before starting at Miniclip in 2011.

Product Madness has a number of new hires over at the company. First, Michael Sjöberg joins as vice president of analytics and monetization. Sjöberg joins from King, where he spent the last 10 years.

Maya Hofree also joins Product Madness, joining the company as VP New Games. Hofree joins from Playtika, where she spent the past eight years.

Also joining Product Madness is Eyal Yaniv, who joins as CTO. Yaniv was also previously working at Playtika, where he was VP R&D Jelly Button games. Prior to that, Yaniv has worked for the likes of Wix.com.

Finally at Product Madness, Varun Mathure joins as VP User Acquisition. Mathure joins the company from Gamesys, where he was Head of Acquisition. He has also previously worked for the likes of Midnite and Catena Media.

Brighton-based integrated audio studio RevRooms has two new hires. First, David Hawkes joins as audio designer, with a decade of industry experience mostly at Creative Assembly.

Mark Bailey also joined RevRooms as an audio designer. After getting his Masters at The National Film and Television School, Bailey freelanced for five years working with clients such as Creative Assembly and games such as Mortal Kombat 11.

Sumo Digital has a host of new hires to shout about – only four of which we have space for this month! First, Megan Clarke joins Sumo Sheffield as their Social Media Coordinator following five years of social media experience in an agency marketing background.

Next up at Sumo, Kerry Rizzo is new head of content & communications at Sumo Group. She joins from VR developer nDreams, having previously held senior comms roles at SEGA, GAME, BAFTA and Ubisoft.

Sandrine Neill joins Sumo Newcastle as their newest junior lighting artist, moving away from her previous role at Playground Games.

Tom Clayton joins Sumo Sheffield as an environment artist. Clayton has previously worked at Sumo Digital on Sackboy: A Big Adventure as a junior environment artist. Prior to Sumo Digital, Clayton has also worked as a lecturer in game art at the University of Hull and Sheffield College.

As always, Splash Damage has far too many hires this month for us to fit them all in here, but here’s just a sample of their new faces. First Adam Stephens joins as lead VFX artist. Stephens has been working in media for 13 years, being in the game industry for around eight years and had a stint in film postproduction for three years

Daniel Carter meanwhile joins as a VFX artist. Before starting at Splash, Carter was a freelance VFX Artist, he worked on GunJam, Everspace 2 and other indie titles.

Niall Ewart also joins the team, as an associate audio programmer. Prior to joining Splash, Ewart was working as an Audio Programmer at Poly Fruit Studios since November 2020.

Alex Baird joins Splash as assistant UI designer, and was previously working as a QA feature tester for the RPG & UI features on Rocksteady’s next title.

Got an appointment you’d like to share with us? Email Chris Wallace at chris.wallace@biz-media.co.uk