adminThe January 2026 games industry jobs roundup brings together executive appointments, promotions and departures across game developers, publishers and related businesses. Behaviour Interactive has announced several leadership changes, while companies including Ubisoft, Microsoft, Frontier Developments and Supercell have also made notable hires.
Keeping up with leadership changes across the games industry can be challenging. This roundup highlights the appointments and transitions reported for January 2026.
Games industry jobs roundup: Behaviour Interactive names new executives
Image credit: Behaviour Interactive | Left to right: Nathan Sellyn, Stephanie Marchand
Behaviour Interactive, the developer of Dead by Daylight, has appointed Nathan Sellyn as deputy CEO and Stephanie Marchand as chief operating officer.
Sellyn joined the company in 2022 and previously served as chief of staff and vice president of strategy. His new remit includes corporate development, stakeholder and industry relations, licensing, marketing and publishing. He also sits on the boards of the Entertainment Software Association of Canada and Interactive Ontario.
Marchand has spent more than 20 years at the Canadian developer, working in senior production and leadership roles. She is also president of the board of La Guilde du jeu vidéo du Québec. As COO, she will oversee production across first-party titles, external development partnerships and immersive entertainment projects.
Behaviour has also promoted Rached Chatti and Louis-Pierre Pharand to vice president, production and executive producer roles. They will work with Kirstin Whittle, the company’s vice president of business development and partnerships, who joined in December 2025.
The company said co-founder and CEO Rémi Racine does not plan to retire in the foreseeable future and will remain closely involved in its management. Behaviour described the appointments as preparation for its next period of growth.
Carsten Myhill departs Tencent Games
Carsten Myhill has left Tencent Games after almost four years as a senior director at Venture Lab. He said the timing felt right to move on and take on a new challenge.
Before Tencent, Myhill held leadership positions at Keywords Studios and Ubisoft. He also co-founded Fire Without Smoke and helped build its North American operations in Montreal.
The roundup’s update also reports that Team17 appointed three portfolio directors, but does not provide their names or further details.
Publishing, marketing and business leadership appointments
Jonathan Hales appointed CEO of Megabit Publishing
Megabit Publishing has named Jonathan Hales as CEO. He will lead the publishing unit, formed by Aonic in 2024. Hales spent almost 15 years at Kasedo Games, part of Kalypso Media, where he served as managing director and led publishing on games including Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus, Rise of Industry and Project Highrise.
Hales entered the industry in 1999 as an international sales manager at Codemasters. During more than seven years there, he became vice president and general manager of Europe. At Megabit, he aims to build the team and establish the publisher as a destination for ambitious independent and AA developers.
Jon Rosenblatt joins Supercell
Jon Rosenblatt has joined Supercell as vice president of global marketing for Clash of Clans. He previously spent almost nine years at Amazon Games, starting as head of marketing for EMEA in 2017 and later becoming publishing director for the region.
Across nearly three decades in the industry, Rosenblatt has also held senior marketing roles at Electronic Arts, Ubisoft and Eidos.
Karl Stricker named Virtuos chief revenue officer
Image credit: Virtuos
Virtuos has appointed Karl Stricker as chief revenue officer. Based in Redmond, Washington, he will report to CEO Gilles Langourieux and join the executive leadership team.
Stricker was previously senior vice president of business development at Xsolla. His earlier experience includes leadership roles in Xbox publishing at Microsoft, helping found Amazon Luna, and leading games business development for the Amazon appstore.
Dexerto appoints Luke Bristow as president
Dexerto has created a president role and appointed Luke Bristow to the position. He will work with the founders and senior leadership team on the company’s next growth phase, including its plans to develop from a digital publisher into a technology-enabled media platform.
Bristow was CEO of London-based media agency MNC and co-owner and COO of social and influencer agency NewGen. Dexerto CEO and co-founder Joshua Nino said Bristow’s experience in media, commercial strategy and business transformation would support the company’s plans for global growth, strategic partnerships and potential acquisitions.
Valentine Piedelievre-Eman to become Ubisoft CCO
Image credit: Ubisoft
Valentine Piedelievre-Eman has been appointed chief communications officer at Ubisoft, with the role beginning on February 2, 2026. She will lead the development and implementation of the company’s global communications and corporate brand strategy, reporting to executive vice president Cécile Russeil.
Piedelievre-Eman previously served as vice president of corporate communications at Warner Bros. Discovery for Western Europe and Africa, overseeing communications across France, the Benelux, Germany and Africa. She has also held senior communications positions at Expleo, SAP and the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Production, game development and studio appointments
Tracy Kennedy returns to Blizzard Entertainment
Tracy Kennedy has returned to Blizzard Entertainment as senior production manager on World of Warcraft. She first joined Blizzard in 2017 as a product manager for big data and later became a producer on Overwatch 2.
Kennedy left for Riot Games in 2022, where she worked as a producer on Legends of Runeterra and then on an unannounced R&D project. In 2024, she joined Amazon Games, producing live operations for New world before becoming lead producer on an R&D program.
Rockstar Games promotes Ben Bayliss
Ben Bayliss has been promoted to senior production coordinator for accessibility at Rockstar Games. Since joining in 2022, he has worked in development support for accessibility and progressed through associate and production coordinator roles.
Before Rockstar, Bayliss worked as a freelance journalist specialising in accessibility. He was editor and later editor-in-chief of Can I Play That, a site covering accessibility in games and the games industry. He also worked at Hound Picked Games, supporting developers with accessibility, digital store pages and online production.
Games Workshop hires Daniel Cooke
Daniel Cooke has joined Games Workshop as senior category manager for video games. His previous role was senior global brand marketing manager at Tencent, following senior marketing positions at Warner Bros. Entertainment, Koch Media and 2K.
Cooke began his career in 2006 as a regional manager at Channel Advantage, representing video game publishers in in-store product presentations. He later became UK and export product manager at 505 Games.
Paramount appoints Dan Prigg to lead games
Dan Prigg has been named executive vice president and head of games at Paramount. He will oversee the long-term interactive entertainment strategy for Paramount and Skydance, including internal development, external publishing and worldwide licensing.
Prigg previously spent four years as executive vice president and head of studio at Skydance Interactive. His earlier roles include executive producer at Scopely, studio director at GameHouse and head of studios at Spil Games.
Frontier Developments names Jo Cooke CEO
Jo Cooke has been appointed CEO of Frontier Developments. She was the company’s chief marketing officer and returned in 2025, having first joined Frontier in 2014 as director of marketing, ecommerce and publishing.
Before returning, Cooke was group director at Bastion. Her career began at Ocean Software in 1990 as a marketing manager, followed by a role as European general manager at Maxis/Electronic Arts. She has also held marketing leadership positions at Bossa Studios and Curve Games.
Niantic appoints Jori Pearsall as SVP of games
Jori Pearsall has joined Niantic as senior vice president of games. The role includes leading the developer’s Tokyo Studio, overseeing cross-functional teams and building partnerships with global IP holders and other stakeholders.
Pearsall spent more than six years at Scopely, progressing from vice president of product to senior vice president of product and studio general manager.
Katie Scott named head of Minecraft Vanilla
Mojang Studios has appointed Katie Scott as head of Minecraft Vanilla. She joins from Ubisoft, where she was vice president of its global creative game office.
Scott has also worked at The Coalition Studio as game design director and lead game designer for multiplayer and metagame. Earlier in her career, she spent more than a decade at Electronic Arts in senior game designer roles. She plans to relocate to Stockholm for the position.
Nitro Games promotes Antti Ruonala and Milka Tarkiainen
Finnish developer Nitro Games has promoted Antti Ruonala to chief operating officer and Milka Tarkiainen to chief product officer. Ruonala was previously head of operations. Since joining in 2014 as a business development assistant, he has held several leadership posts, including head of B2B and business development director.
Tarkiainen was director of PeopleOps before her promotion. She joined Nitro Games in 2017 as a marketing coordinator and has worked in HR management. She said her experience at the company had prepared her for the new responsibilities.
Other studio and game development moves
At Kuro Games, Jay Kim has taken the role of general manager of Korea. He previously held general manager positions for Korea at Infold and Scopely, and led business development for Korea and Japan at Tilting Point. Kim began his games industry career at Razer in 2010 as Korea country manager and later held the same role at Glu Mobile.
Azra Games has promoted Johny Scaglione to executive producer. He joined the developer in 2024 as senior director of production. Before that, he spent five years at Scopely, where he moved from senior producer to lead producer and then production director. He has also worked at Electronic Arts, IUGO Mobile Entertainment and Offworld Industries.
Theorycraft Games has promoted Jeremy Griffith to creative director. Griffith joined in 2021 as principal VFX artist and later became a senior game designer. His previous work includes lead VFX artist at Cloud Chamber, senior VFX artist at Riot Games and remote effects development for multiple clients.
Raymond Bartos, a former World of Warcraft producer, has joined Riot Games as senior game producer and will contribute to its ongoing MMO project. He previously spent more than three years at Blizzard Entertainment. Bartos entered the industry at Stardock in 2011 and was credited as producer on Sorcerer King and Galactic Civilizations 3. He has also held producer and project manager roles at Strength in Numbers Game Studios, PixoGroup, Daybreak Game Company and Zwift.
Appointments across agencies, platforms and industry organisations
Amy Ballantyne joins Plaion
Amy Ballantyne has joined Plaion as UK PR manager. She was previously EMEA marketing and public relations manager at Kalypso Media and spent three years at Big Games Machine, becoming account manager in 2022.
Cinzia Musio takes programme manager role at UKIE
UKIE has appointed Cinzia Musio as programme manager, with responsibility for leading its equity, diversity and inclusion strategy. Musio will lead the Raise the Game programme and support the development of funded programmes and partnerships.
Before joining UKIE, Musio was a non-executive director at Code Coven and held roles including interim CEO, co-CEO and diversity, equity and inclusion consultant. They joined the games industry at Splash Damage in 2017 as an associate tech ops manager, later becoming operations project manager and diversity and inclusion adviser.
Callum Underwood joins Nosebleed Interactive board
Callum Underwood has joined the board of Nosebleed Interactive as a non-executive director. He is CEO of games industry consultancy Uwu Biz and co-founder of startup IndieBi. He also advises Kepler Interactive, Oro Interactive, Boneloaf, Bippinbits and Team Terrible, and previously advised NetEase Games.
Nosebleed founder and CEO Andreas Firnigl said Underwood’s experience would support the company’s next phase. The appointment follows the success of Arcade Paradise, which the company says has surpassed five million players.
Green Man Gaming expands business development
Digital games retailer Green Man Gaming has hired Adam Snook as senior vice president of content acquisition, publishing and DMS. Snook has held senior positions at Kwalee, Team17 Digital and Games Workshop, with experience in business development, licensing and game scouting.
Ben Tucker has joined as game scout. He spent seven years at Team17 Digital, working across quality assurance and scouting. In his new role, he will help expand Green Man Gaming’s scouting work and support studios seeking publishing, funding and distribution assistance.
Joshua Lamb joins Ubisoft’s UK communications team
Joshua Lamb has joined Ubisoft as communications manager for its UK team. He spent four and a half years in journalism, beginning as a community engagement journalist at The Times. He later established the publication’s gaming section and became its first games critic.
Secret Mode hires Dan Robinson and Ade Lawton
Dan Robinson has joined Secret Mode as vice president of marketing, leading marketing across product, communications, creative and brand for the publisher’s portfolio. He was previously group commercial director at Rebellion and has held executive roles at Motorsport Games, Codemasters and Eutechnyx.
Ade Lawton has joined as publishing director. He will oversee publishing work for multiple major titles, coordinating product lifecycles across internal teams and working with partners, platform holders and developers. His previous employers include Kwalee, Team17 and Codemasters.
Microsoft adds leadership and communications hires
Terri Chudzik has been promoted to strategic governance partner on Microsoft’s game content and studios COO team. She joined Microsoft in 1997 as a senior program manager and most recently worked as general manager and product manager for the Xbox platform.
Chris Leggett has joined Microsoft as Xbox senior communications manager. He previously supported Xbox communications for four years at Assembly Media, including work on the launches of Xbox Cloud Gaming and Xbox Series X|S. He was also PR manager at Amazon Game Studios and held senior management roles at WE Communications, working on Windows Mixed Reality and Microsoft HoloLens.
Additional agency and publishing appointments
Raptor PR has hired Chris Redgrave for its first dedicated business development position. He will initially support social and PR work for client accounts in a hybrid role before moving into a full-time business development position. Redgrave built his games industry career at Aaardvark Swift Recruitment and has also worked at Phokou Digital. He founded Game Scout Journal, a blog for games studio founders.
CJ Melendez has been promoted to vice president of public relations at UberStrategist. They joined the video game PR and marketing agency in 2014 as a junior coordinator and later became senior account director of PR services.
Dan Prigg’s appointment as Paramount’s games leader, the moves across publishing and the promotions at studios reflect the range of responsibilities represented in this January 2026 games industry jobs roundup. For readers following leadership changes, the appointments show how companies are staffing roles across production, communications, publishing, accessibility and business development.
