Kripalani leaves Autodesk

Michel Kripalani, head of business development of Autodesk’s games technology group, is to leave the firm.

Like other large software companies at the moment, Autodesk is reducing the size of its 7,000-strong headcount – and Kripalani’s departure comes as part of the reorganisation.

Kripalani is best known as Autodesk’s face to the games industry, having held the post of senior industry manager for games for over three years.

Last year he moved to a new role assisting with the creation of the new unit within Autodesk – which offers the ubiquitous 3ds Max, Maya and XSI applications – that is dedicated to its new games middleware tools, including Kynogon’s Kynapse, acquired last year.

During his time at Autodesk, the company also acquired Alias (Maya), Skymatter (Mudbox) and Softimage (XSI).

He was previously the CEO/President of Presto Studios for 11 years.

"After four and a half years of being with the company, it is time to move on," Kripalani told Develop. "As always, I am happy to entertain interesting business opportunities."

Kripalani, who is based in San Diego, expects to stay in the games industry and tells us he is "also contemplating starting a new company focused on the development of iPhone applications".