Ins and Outs – January 2021’s industry hires roundup

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

Splash Damage has been on a serious hiring spree lately, with seven new staff at the company.

First, Aleksandra Jankowska joins the studio as an environment artist. Jankowska was previously at Ninja Theory, where she had worked for the past two years as a junior environment artist.

Next up at Splash Damage, Gaethan Bracke signs on as an associate technical artist. Bracke joins the company from Cruden B.V, where he was most recently working as a freelance 3D artist.

 

Eduardo Cueto Sola also joins, as a game designer. Sola was previously a game design lecturer at ESNE, University School of Design, Innovation
and Technology

Alex Trowers comes onboard as a lead level designer. Previously, Trowers has previously worked at numerous places in the industry over a career spanning Bullfrog to Boss Alien.

Next at Splash Damage, Steve Lane has also joined the company as a senior audio designer. Lane has over 18 years of experience as an audio engineer across multiple different mediums. Lane has spent much of his career as a sound engineer at Grand Central Recording Studios, where he worked for 17 years.

Meanwhile, Sam Baker joins the company as an associate technical audio designer. Previously to joining Splash Damage, Baker was working for Just Good Company on a freelance basis as a producer and sound engineer, and worked at Quarter Circle Games prior to that.

Still at Splash Damage, Tom Stockwell joins the company as a senior concept artist. Stockwell has worked
at Just Won’t Die Studio, where he worked for one year.

Finally at Splash Damage, Max Downton has had a promotion and is now a senior brand manager at the company.

Charlene Sharp has joined communications agency Way to Blue as their new head of games and interactive entertainment. Sharp is an experienced games industry marketer who has worked in-house as UK PR Manager at Eidos Interactive Entertainment and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and agency-side at Indigo Pearl. Sharp has 15 years of agency experience working across film, TV and gaming.

Electronic Arts has confirmed that commercial strategy & planning lead, Colin Blackwood, has stepped in to cover the maternity leave of Samantha Ebelthite, UK&I country manager. Colin previously held the role of franchise marketing director and has been with the company since 2005.

Curve Digital has a new CEO in John Clark. Clark joins Curve Digital from Tencent, where he held the role of VP Partnerships Europe. Prior to that, he spent 13 years at SEGA Europe, ultimately serving as EVP Publishing

Sumo Nottingham has announced three new hires. First, Darren Campion will be joining the studio as executive producer. Starting out his career in the TV & Film industries as an SFX artist, Campion moved to the games industry 15 years ago. He has since worked at Codemasters, helping to set up their Kuala Lumpur studio and producing the GRID, F1 and DiRT franchises. Campion joins from Rare having worked on Sea of Thieves, Rare Replay and Kinect Sports Rivals.

Steven Kirby  also joins Sumo Nottingham as a lead games designer. With over 16 years of design experience in the video games industry, Kirby worked at Frontier Developments PLC, Rebellion, Razorworks and Coyote Developments before becoming part of the Sumo Digital family.

Finally, Chris Green joins Sumo Nottingham as lead game designer having previously worked at Hangar 18, Studio Gobo and Climax.

Exient Publishing has strengthened its marketing operations with two key hires. First, Jamie Wotton joins as creative marketing manager, tasked with building out a specialist team and a diversified marketing strategy, encompassing mobile ads, creative and app store optimisation (ASO).

Second, Becky Pomroy  joins as social and community manager after nine years in the industry working across social media, QA and design. Pomroy will be responsible for social design, player engagement and support across hit games such as Lemmings Puzzle Adventure, as well as driving deeper social integration across the Exient Publishing portfolio and building influencer partnerships.

Katie Laurence has been promoted over at Ubisoft, and is now communications manager.She will be leading Far Cry 6 as her first title in the new role. This marks her second promotion in just nine months.

 

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