Ins and Outs – October 2020’s industry hires roundup

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

Splash Damage has made a number of promotions within the company. First, Oliver Ward has been promoted to senior development manager. Ward was previously development manager, and joined the company in September 2017as an associate producer.

Still at Splash Damage, Stuart Farishta-Smith has been promoted to senior production tester. Farishta-Smith has been at the company since August 2017, joining as a production tester.

The third promotion is Timothy Orman, who has been promoted to senior development manager. Orman has been promoted multiple times in his almost 4 years at the company, having joined as a production intern in March 2017.

Next up, George Wright has been promoted to executive producer. Wright has had a number of different roles in his six year stint at Splash Damage, starting as a producer in 2014.

Still at Splash Damage, Ryan Wiltshire has been promoted to senior development director.

Wiltshire has been at the company for almost nine years now, having started in January 2012 as an associate producer.

 

Finally, Barane Chan has joined Splash Damage as principal UI programmer.

Chan has experience working on the Grand Theft Auto franchise and Killzone: Mercenary.

Ray Willmott has joined Coatsink as a senior social media and community manager. Willmott will be working on some of their new and upcoming games, as well as a currently unannounced project.

Lucy Boxall has been named director of corporate communications at Creative Assembly. Previously the studio’s head of communications, Boxall has been with Creative Assembly for four years and will lead the studio’s global corporate communication functions for the UK and Bulgaria.

James Bruce has joined Premier as head of games PR. His background in the industry includes heading up the UK PR & Social team for Xbox at Edelman for four years, as well as running global communications for sports broadcaster DAZN.

Kaiha Puckey has joined Bandai Namco as a communication and events executive. Puckey previously worked at Ubisoft, in a 12 monthstint as a PR and Marketing Intern.

Kati Levoranta is stepping down as CEO of Rovio Entertainment. Levoranta has been CEO of Rovio since 2016, where she took over from former chief Pekka Rantala.

Nazih Fares is leaving his position as communications manager at Blizzard Entertainment, where he was responsible for the RIMEA territory. Fares has over 12 years in the business, and as a “proud polygot,” is available for work in the EU/UK. Fares’ portfolio can be found at http://nazihfares.com/

Deep Silver has four new hires. First, Maxx Wallace has joined the company as a global marketing assistant. Wallace has over seven years of experience in the video games industry working with GAME and Activision Blizzard.

Ali Payne joins as global communications manager. Payne has been in the industry for over 20 years, having started out as a business trade journalist on CTW. Prior to joining Deep Silver, Payne was Senior Publicity Consultant at Little Big PR.

Next, David Robson joins Deep Silver as global community and influencer manager. Robson has eight years’ experience and has specialised in working with influencers across the gaming industry for the last five years

Finally, Chris Peters joins as global community manager This is his first role in the video games industry, having moved from an executive complaints position in the energy sector.

VR developer nDreams continues its studio expansion with a number of key hires and promotions. First, Tamsin O’Luanaigh has been promoted to chief people officer. O’Luanaigh has been at nDreams for 15 years now, having previously worked at IBM Global Services.

And Tomas Gillo has been promoted to chief development officer. Gillo was previously vice president of development at nDreams, having joined in November 2015.

Next, James Shepherd joins the company as head of studio, the BAFTA winning creative will support Tom in the running of the 100+ person development team. Shepherd previously has held senior roles at both Xbox and PlayStation.

Finally, Thad Frogley, formerly of Boss Alien, joins as technical director. Frogley has over 20 year’s experience in games development and brings a wealth of technical and managerial experience
to the role.

 

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