Manny Anekal, Zynga’s Global Director of Brand Advertising, has left the company to help lead reward-based mobile advertising startup Kiip as its new chief operating officer.

During his two years at Zynga, Anekal lead the company’s in-game advertising and brand integration efforts in its main titles, and was behind some of Zynga’s biggest in-game promotions, like Lady Gaga’s “GagaVille” promotion for her album Born this Way, as well as recent deals with Farmers Insurance.

Like his peers Barry Cottle and John Schappert, Anekal came to Zynga from EA, where he worked as the company’s senior manager of in game advertising and its global director of ad operations before leaving to join the social gaming giant. According to Zynga’s fourth quarter earnings results, the company earned $27.3 million from advertising revenue, a 230 percent increase year-on-year. It is not yet known who will replace Anekal at Zynga.

Kiip made its debut last April and works with more than 65 mobile developers to incorporate advertising into a game’s existing achievement system. Founded by then 19-year-old Digg alumni Brian Wong, the company has so far received $4 million in funding from Hummer Windblad Venture Partners, Crosslink Capital and True Ventures. In December, the company unveiled its latest product, limited-time promotional tournaments called Swarm campaigns.

Hiring in the social gaming industry dropped this week, with six companies reporting 10 recent hires. According to data from LinkedIn and other sources, Zynga was by far the busiest hiring source, accounting for almost half of this week’s batch. There were no significant or executive hires to report.

If your company is hiring new people or making a notable promotion, please get in touch with us. Email us at: mail (at) insidesocialgames (dot) com, and we’ll get your news into an upcoming post.

If you want to know who else is hiring, the Inside Network Job Board showcases current openings with the industry’s leading companies.

GameHouse

• Bram Verhoeven, Intern - A single hire for GameHouse starts our roundup. Verhoeven is currently a student at Fontys Hogescholen in the Netherlands.

GSN

• Bert Jayasekera, Executive Director, Library Services – Jayasekera moves up at GSN, having previously served as the company’s director of library services.
• Michele Castagnetti, Art Director – Castagnetti was previously a freelance art director.

Kabam

• Michael DeBrosse, Animation Intern – DeBrosse starts his career at Kabam.

King.com

• Per-Erik Bergman, Senior Game Developer – Bergman was a senior consultant at Jayway before joining King.com.

Wooga

• Emma Kiiski, Game Artist Trainee – Kiiski was formerly a graphic designer at CalQuest.

Zynga

• Anoop Dixith, Software Developer – Four moves this week for Zynga. Dixith was previously a software engineer at NDS services Pay TV Technology.
• Heather Franklin, QA Analyst – Franklin was a QA Embedded Tester at BioWare SF (Electronic Arts) before coming to Zynga.
• Neha Joshi, Associate Producer – Joshi gets a promotion at Zynga to make our list this week. She was formerly a QA engineer at Zynga Games India.
• Daniel Cull, IT Intern - Finally Zynga brings on Cull, who was previously an intern in training at Year Up.

Hiring in the social gaming industry was up again this week, with 10 companies reporting 16 recent hires. According to data from LinkedIn and other sources Zynga showed the most activity. We saw several very high profile moves in the industry for the week, as well: King.com added Emma Vaz as its vice president for business development and partnerships in EMEA, Nordeus scooped Nikola Cavic to be its head of business development from Eve Online maker CCP, We R Interactive added Paul Whitehead as global commercial director and Zynga promoted Fareed Mosavat to head of studio, Zynga Boston.

If your company is hiring new people or making a notable promotion, please get in touch with us. Email us at: mail (at) insidesocialgames (dot) com, and we’ll get your news into an upcoming post.

If you want to know who else is hiring, the Inside Network Job Board showcases current openings with the industry’s leading companies.

Digital Chocolate 

• Fatima Monllor, Game Designer – Digital Chocolate leads our roundup with a promotion for Monllor, who was previously a QA manager for the company.

East Side Games 

• Jerry Cai, Contract Art Consultant – Two hires for Vancouver-based East Side Games. Cai was previously a Flash game designer contractor at Rival Schools.
• Dana Sharon, Android Developer - Next up is Sharon, who was a was Gameplay Programmer at Ubisoft.

King.com

• Emma Vaz, Vice President for Business Development and Partnerships, EMEA – King.com has a very high profile hire. Vaz was most recently the VP of international partnerships for Europe and Asia Pacific at Oberon.

Nordeus

• Nikola Cavic, Head of Business Development – Nordeus makes our list for the third week in a row with a high profile hire. Cavic was previously the senior sales manager at CCP.

Peak Games

• Ilker Yoldas, UI Designer – Two hires for Peak this week. Yoldas was previously a freelance designer.
• Alper Mat, Director of Product - Mat was formerly a consultant at Bain & Company.

Playfish

• Andrea Bobick, Animator – A single hire for Playfish. Bobick was previously an animator at Betsoft Gaming.

Plumbee

• Heather Murray, Junior Artist – Murray was a freelance illustrator before joining Plumbee.

We R Interactive

• Paul Whitehead, Global Commercial Director – We R Interactive makes another of this week’s highest profile hires. Whitehead was formerly at Channel 4 as its head of corporate and business development.

Wooga

• Greg Latham, Jr. PR Manager - Latham comes from Frogster Online Gaming GmbH, where he was also a jr. PR manager.
• Pawel Romasz, Art Lead - Romasz was the art director at Vast Studios.

Zynga

• Fareed Mosavat, Head of Studio, Zynga Boston – A high profile move for Zynga, which promotes Mosavat to head of studio in Boston. He was previously the Director of Product, Adventure World.
• Viktor Lidholt, Senior Software Engineer - Lidholt was the Lead Game Developer at Stardoll.
• Srinath Ramanujan, Software Engineer - Ramanujan was formerly an intern at Reliance Trends Limited.
• Anupama Narisetty, QA Engineer – Narisetty moves from VMware, where he was a QE engineer.

Hiring in the social gaming industry was up again this week, with 11 companies reporting 14 recent hires. According to data from LinkedIn and other sources Arkadium and Bossa Studios showed the most activity with a pair of hires each. While hiring activity was up, there were no high profile hires to report this week.

If your company is hiring new people or making a notable promotion, please get in touch with us. Email us at: mail (at) insidesocialgames (dot) com, and we’ll get your news into an upcoming post.

If you want to know who else is hiring, the Inside Network Job Board showcases current openings with the industry’s leading companies.

Arkadium

• Grant Reid, Game Design Intern – Arkadium hires a pair of interns this week. Reid is a student at New York University.
• Rebecca Brooker, Game Design Intern – Brooker comes to Arkadium from the University of Toronto.

Bossa Studios

• Joao Martins, Server Developer - Martins comes to Bossa Studios from Escola de Rafting Atlântico.
• Jack Good, 3D Modeler - Good was previously a junior artist at Ideaworks3D.

Digital Chocolate 

• Marta Cortiñas, Producer – Cortiñas moves up from her role as junior producer at Digital Chocolate.

EA Playfish

• Peter Crotty, Software Engineer – Crotty was formerly a system developer at Aquila.

GSN

• Matthew Rockoff, Sales Associate – Rockoff changes jobs this week, moving from a position as an experienced digital/TV sales planner at GSN.

Loot Drop

• Matt Waggle, Artist – Waggle was previously the assistant art director at Reliance Media Works VFX

MegaZebra

• Franz Stradal, Producer – Stradal comes to MegaZebra from Gameforge.

Nordeus

• Nemanja Posrkača, Online Marketing and Customer Relations Manager - Posrkača makes our list with a promotion this week, moving up from his position as an online marketing assistant at Nordeus.

Vostu

• Nicolás Salvia, Email Marketing Analyst – Salvia comes to Vostu from MKT S.A., where he was a research economist.

Wooga

• Robin Pan, Intern iOS Developer – Pan was formerly a technical game designer at the Science Media Centre of Canada.

Zynga

• Ikbhal Basha Shaik, Game Developer – Two hires for Zynga this week. Shaik was a software engineer at Amazon.com
• Zachary Fand, Software Engineer Intern - Finally, Fand comes to Zynga from Northeastern University.

Hiring in the social gaming industry was up again this week, with 10 companies reporting 11 recent hires. According to data from LinkedIn and other sources Zynga had this week’s highest profile hire, bringing on Ken Weber to lead its charitable Zynga.org arm as executive director.

If your company is hiring new people or making a notable promotion, please get in touch with us. Email us at: mail (at) insidesocialgames (dot) com, and we’ll get your news into an upcoming post.

If you want to know who else is hiring, the Inside Network Job Board showcases current openings with the industry’s leading companies.

Cie Games

• David Bresson, Systems Engineer – A single hire at Cie Games begins our roundup this week. Bresson was previously a systems engineer at Disney Interactive Media Group.

Disney Playdom 

• Faiz Kamarul Baharin, Lead Concept and Production Artist - A single move for Disney Playdom this week, which promotes Baharin to lead concept and production artist.

EA Playfish

• Ke Ren, Technical Lead – Ren makes our roundup with a promotion from his position as server developer.
• Tom Pearson, Lead Platform Developer – Pearson moves from an executive level position at Morgan Stanley to join Playfish’s UK team.

GSN

• Maneka Mahajan, Administrative Assistant – Mahajan was previously a business analysis intern at the American Institute of Physics.

Kabam

• Kevin Ligon, UI Artist – Ligon was formerly a graphic designer at Cardinal Health.

Kixeye

• Maximilian Herkender, Flash Engineer – Herkender comes to Kixeye from 6waves Lolapps, where he was a software engineer.

Nordeus

• Jasmina Jović, Customer Support Specialist - Jović starts her career at Nordeus this week.

Peak Games

• Can Ozcer, Assistant Intelligence Analyst - Peak brings on Ozcer from Esit Electronic where he was an R&D intern.

Tetris Online

• David Veltri, Legal Extern – Tetris Online makes a rare appearance this week. Veltri completed his education at the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa.

Zynga

• Ken Weber, Executive Director, Zynga.org – Finally Zynga snags this week’s highest profile hire, appointing Weber as the head of Zynga.org. Weber was previously the chief operating officer at The ONE Campaign.

Hiring in the social gaming industry was up this week, with eight companies reporting nine recent hires. According to data from LinkedIn and other sources Booyah had this week’s highest profile hire, bringing on Bryan Bennett as its new vice president of marketing.

If your company is hiring new people or making a notable promotion, please get in touch with us. Email us at: mail (at) insidesocialgames (dot) com, and we’ll get your news into an upcoming post.

If you want to know who else is hiring, the Inside Network Job Board showcases current openings with the industry’s leading companies.

6wave Lolapps

• Marvin E. Blanton, QA Analyst – Two hires for 6wave Lolapps begin our roundup. Blanton was previously a QA analyst at iWin, Inc.
• Cam McKinnon, Flash Game Engineer – McKinnon was formerly a software engineering intern at SugarCRM.

Booyah

• Bryan Bennett, Vice President of Marketing – This week’s highest profile hire goes to Booyah, which brings on Bennet to be its vice president of marketing. Bennett coems from Kabam, where he was a general manger.

Digital Chocolate

• Sujeet Shenoy, Software Engineer – A single hire for Digital Chocolate. Shenoy was previously a multimedia programmer at Tarang Software Technologies.

Gaia Interactive

• Jon Hendren, Writer – Hendren leaves Kabam, where he was a community specialist to take a job as a writer with Gaia Interactive.

Kabam

• Brian Kistler, Art Intern – Kistler comes to Kabam from San Jose State University.

Nordeus

• Ivana Koprivica, Customer Support Specialist - Koprivica was previously a translator at SION.

Peak Games

• Pelin Karagülle, Game User Interface Designer - Karagülle was formerly a digital jr. art director at Pure New Media.

Zynga

• Andy Cameron, QA Engineer II – Zynga closes our roundup with a single hire. Cameron was formerly a QA analyst at Paragon Studios.

Digital Chocolate announced a series of significant executive hires today and revealed its games are coming to Android devices.

According to a Digital Chocolate press release, Nokia’s former head of program management execution, Kaj Häggman, is now Digital Chocolate’s vice president and the general manager of its Helsinki studio. Emmi Kuusikko, the former director of user and market insight at Sulake joins Digital Chocolate as vice president of product management.

Although Digital Chocolate announced the hires today, according to Häggman’s and Kuusikko’s LinkedIn profiles, both executives have been with the company since the tail-end of 2011.

As part of the announcement, Digital Chocolate also revealed Army Attack would be joining Zombie Lane on iOS, and that both games would be making their way to Android, tablets and other browser channels. The press release did not indicate if the mobile version of Army Attack would be cross platform, or if it would be a stand-alone game like the mobile version of Zombie Lane. The company also revealed that its new St. Petersburg and Seattle Studios are working on games for “new genres and platforms,” but did not give any further information.

As part of the changes, Digital Chocolate also promoted Edmund Chui to VP platform engineering, Jerome Collin to VP product management and Sean Dornan-Fish to VP game design. In Finland the company promoted Marko Lastikka to VP production and Miikka Kukkosuo to VP regional sales.

In February the company raised $12 million in Series D funding in a round lead by Intel Capital.

EA’s Barry Cottle has left the company to take a position at Zynga as executive vice president of business and corporate development.

Cottle follows a similar path taken by fellow EA alum John Schappert, who jumped ship for Zynga last April. We’ve seen several other ex-EA employees below the corporate level also migrate, suggesting a significant level of compatibility between the two corporate cultures. Though at EA since 2007, Cottle barely spent six months in the role as EVP of EA Interactive – Social, Mobile and Online Gaming, which he took over when EA shuffled its executives in August 2011.

Zynga expressed excitement at the hire in statements provided in a press release. EA hasn’t responded to request for comment as of press time. At this point, it’s unclear who will fill Cottle’s shoes at EA.

UPDATE: EA has updated its corporate roster with Playfish founder Kristian Segerstrale as EVP of Digital. In an Action letter to employees filed today, EA CEO John Riccitiello says that the company will now fold EA Interactive into all its divisions in a restructuring effort to be detailed at a Town Hall meeting on February 2. Frank Gibeau and Peter Moore retain their positions as president of EA Labels and COO, respectively, with Moore taking on leadership of a new Customer Experience Group. Rajat Taneja remains CTO with an emphasis on building up EA’s proprietary platform, Origin.

“This reflects our new reality,” Riccitiello’s statement reads, “everyone and everything is digital.”

UPDATE 2: An EA spokesperson clarifies that the new structure of EAi is not hinged on Cottle’s departure and Segerstrale’s new role is significantly different than the one Cottle left behind. “In fact,” says the spokesperson, ” it further reflects the changing structure that as the parts of EAi integrate into other areas of EA, Segerstrale is focused on a wide-reaching new role that helps to define parts of our new digital business.”

Hiring in the social gaming industry was up after the holiday break, with seven companies reporting new hires and promotions. According to data from LinkedIn and other sources, King.com showed the most activity this week as it announced 23 recent hires. King.com, Kixeye and Zynga also had the highest profile moves, with King.com promoting Lars Jörnow to VP of mobile games, Kixeye adding a new position called VP of customer insights and Zynga bringing on Disney/Playdom’s former VP-executive producer Randy Dersham as general manager.

If your company is hiring new people or making a notable promotion, please get in touch with us. Email us at: mail (at) insidesocialgames (dot) com, and we’ll share your news in an upcoming post.

If you want to know who else is hiring, the Inside Network Job Board showcases current openings with the industry’s leading companies.

IGG

• Sunny Yang, President/CEO Assistant - IGG makes a high level administrative hire this week, bringing on Yang from Blount where she was the GM Secretary.

King.com

• Levina Nilsson, Product Manager Social & Mobile Games
• Gustav Stenmark, Product Manager Social & Mobile Games
• Gunnar Eketrapp, Senior System Developer
• Erik Byström, System Developer
• Gustaf Jilkén, Key Account Manager, Advertising Sales
• Mille Trygg, Art Director
• Thomas Vedel Larsen, Performance Manager Skill Games
• Marcus Dahlgren, Senior Producer Social Games
• Carl Gustav Bäckström, Art Director
• Anna Bongenhielm, Business Intelligence Developer
• David Pamsjö, HR Manager
• Oskar Lund, System Developer
• Daniel Persson, Head of Studio Malmö
• Tobias Nyblom, Product Manager Social & Mobile Games
• Sara Norberg, Game Developer
• Evangelos Vrocharis, QA Social & Mobile Games
• Simon Hansson, QA Social & Mobile Games
• Renate Baier, Partner Manager
• Sanna Söderström, Advertising Operations Director
• Esperia Stefanidou, Marketing Analyst
• Sean Chapman, Facebook Marketing Specialist
• Wayne Emanuel, Key Account Manager, Advertising Sales
• Lars Jörnow, VP Mobile Games - King.com’s highest profile announcement is the promotion of Jörnow to its vice president of mobile games. Jörnow was previously the senior producer and product manager for Bubble Witch Saga.

Kontagent

• Owen Martin, Data Scientist - Kontagent makes a single hire this week, bringing on Martin from RSA Group, where he was a senior statistician.

RockYou

• Brooke Shade, Office Coordinator – RockYou brings on Shade from Logitech, where she was an executive assistant.

Wooga

• Mikita Fedarenka, Senior Designer - Wooga picks up Fedarenka from Belka Technologies, where he was a lead artist.

Zynga

• Alex Euting, QA Engineer – Euting was previously a QA tester at Sony Online Entertainment.
• Randy Dersham, General Manager – Zynga made this week’s highest profile hire, bringing on Dersham from Disney/Playdom where he was a VP-executive producer.

Hiring in the social gaming industry was down this week, with six companies reporting 17 new or recent hires and promotions. According to data from LinkedIn and other sources Zynga and Plumbee showed the most activity this week. The biggest moves were at Booyah where EA PopCap’s former director of operations – social came on as the director of product development and at Mail.Ru Games, where there were two high level executive changes.

If your company is hiring new people or making a notable promotion, please get in touch with us. Email us at: mail (at) insidesocialgames (dot) com, and we’ll get your news into an upcoming post.

If you want to know who else is hiring, the Inside Network Job Board showcases current openings with the industry’s leading companies.

Booyah

• Jacob McMahon, Director of Product Development - Booyah leads the hires this week with a high profile hire. McMahon was previously the director of operations – social at EA PopCap.

EA Playfish

• Rachel Yu, Marketing Manager – EA’s Playfish adds one new employee, bringing on Yu from her previous position as a consultant at Ruder Finn.

Plarium

• Leonard Frankel, Business Development Manager – Eastern European social games company Plarium makes our list this week with a high profile hire, bringing on Frankel, the former CEO of Universal Business & Trading as its business development manager.

Plumbee

While not technically a list of new hires, Plumbee, the London-based social game startup founded by Raf Keustermans, Gerald Tan and Jodi Moran announced its initial staff lineup:

• James Cook, Server Engineer – Cook was a lead server engineer at EA Playfish.
• Jakub Pudelek, Client Engineer – Pudelek was formerly a game developer at EA Playfish
• Darren Ward, Client Engineer – Ward came from Nokia where he was a senior software engineer.
• Simon Loader, Automated Deployment Engineer – Loader came from Betfair, where he was system architect.
• Marc Trepannier, Associate Server Engineer - Next up is Trepannier, who was previously a software engineer at Agena Ltd.
• Dragos Dogaru, Associate Server Engineer - Dogaru begins his career with Plumbee, and was formerly an intern at SoftVision.
• Rav Singh, Art Director – Singh moved from Codemasters where he had the same title.
• Kate Steinmeyer, UI/UX Designer – Next is Steinmeyer, who was formerly a  user experience & user interface designer at Gamesys.
• Saikala Sultanova, Marketing Intern – Sultanova moves from The Table where she was a marketing associate.

Plumbee also announced its list of advisors: Dan Fiden (previously the GM of Playfish’s US studio, former VP Publishing at Gazillion), Joachim Timmermans(previously head of casino at Unibet Group Plc), Ben Fried and Anton Bell (both former Betfair executives)

Zynga

• Chien Ly, Temp QA Engineer – Zynga announces three hires in what has been a quiet week. Ly was formerly a data analyst at Premier Retail Networks.
• Sara Leedom, Quality Assurance Engineer - Leedom moves from Meteor Games, where she was a quality assurance tester.
• Mazedur Rahman, QA Engineer – Next up is Rahman who was previously a teaching assistant at San Jose State University.