New Hires in Social Gaming: Digital Chocolate, GSN, Happy Elements, & More
In terms of the number of social developers hiring on new individuals, the activity continues to be fairly high, with a few companies bringing in new leaders, according to data from LinkedIn and other sources.
King.com, RockYou!, and Zynga all added new players to their respective management teams. King.com brings Mark Charkin to the table as its new executive vice president of global business development and ad sales. RockYou! hires Ed Stepankovsky as its new director of sales, and Zynga notes Steve Schreck as the company’s new group general manager.
As always, if your company is hiring new people or making a notable promotion, please let us know. Email editor (at) insidesocialgames (dot) com, and we’ll get it into this or next week’s post. Also, please note that the information about most new hires, below, comes directly from company updates from LinkedIn, and is only as current as people’s profiles.
Looking for new opportunities? The Inside Network Job Board presents a survey of current openings at leading companies in the industry.
Here’s this week’s full list:
- Manish Jha, Game Producer — A single hire joins Digital Chocolate. Jha was previously a senior QA engineer at Knowledge Adventure India.
- K. Caitlin Wheeler, Executive Director of Business & Legal Affairs — In an internal shift at GSN, K. Caitlin Wheeler moves up from her prior role as a director of business and legal affairs.
- Victoria Fealkoff, Marketing & Promotions Intern — Fealkoff joins GSN this week. She was previously a real estate assistant at Prudential California Realty.
- Hyehwa Park, Regional Operations — Now a part of Happy Elements, Park was most recently and intern, AE at Innocean Worldwide, Beijing.
- Darryl Wong, Player Experience Associate — Joining Kabam, Wong was formerly a customer service and support representative at Costco Wholesale.
- Eddie Hsu, Associate Producer — In an internal shift at Kabam, Hsu moves from his prior role as a research analyst.
- Mark Charkin, Executive Vice President of Global Business Development & Ad Sales — As noted prior, Mark Charkin joins King.com’s management team. Charkin was most recently the global vice president of sales at Bebo.
- Kanane Jones, Game Tester — Now at LOLapps, Jones was previously a game tester for SCEA Format QA.
- Stephanie Chow, Marketing Intern — A single hire comes in for Mindjolt. Chow was most recently a research assistant at UCLA Anderson School of Management.
- Mike McKellar, QA Engineer — Now part of the Playfish team specifically, McKellar was (and technically still is) a QA Lead for Electronic Arts in general.
- Maria Vengut, Online Content Manager — Also joining Playfish, Vengut was previously a redactora (editor) for Brides Times.
- Maria Bada, Online Content Manager & Resident Translator — Bada was most recently a researcher and communications officer at Fondazione Pangea Onlus.
- EJ Lee, Artist/UI Designer — Joining PopCap Games, Lee was previously an artist and visual designer for ZipZapPlay, which was acquired by PopCap back in April.
- Ed Stepankovsky, Director of Sales — As highlighted already, Ed Stepankovsky is now at RockYou! He was most recently a national sales executive at AdGent Digital.
- Steve Schreck, Group General Manager — As noted prior, Steve Schreck joins Zynga as its new general manager. He was previously the director of business and strategy for Microsoft Games Studios.
- Umang Patel, QA Engineer — Also joining Zynga, Patel was most recently a software QA engineer for MShift.
- Hasham Ali, Software Engineer — Ali was formerly a software engineering intern at Apple.
- Michael Reilly, Product Management Intern — Reilly was previously an associate at J.P. Morgan.
