Microsoft has announced significant changes to its Xbox and marketing leadership. Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer has sent an internal memo to Xbox employees outlining all the changes.
Sarah Bond has been promoted to Xbox president, where she will be responsible for leading all Xbox platform and hardware work. On the other hand, Matt Booty has been appointed as the president of game content and studios, overseeing Bethesda and ZeniMax studios.
The Verge has obtained Spencer’s memo, and you can read it in full below:
It’s been a whirlwind two weeks since we closed our deal with ABK, an acquisition that will materially impact our current and future success. Since then, I’ve been on tour, visiting the teams. It’s been awesome to see the ambition of the games they’re making, the depth of the talent among the teams, and their excitement to be a part of Microsoft with a creative culture that aligns with their own.
Microsoft Gaming is on a multi-year journey to reach players where they are, on the devices they choose to play, and our strategy is working. We have thirteen $1B+ franchises in our portfolio and we just set new records for engagement in Game Pass. As our business continues to grow, it’s important that we structure ourselves to sustain that momentum with effective clarity and accountability across Gaming. In that spirit, we are making the following organisational changes effective today:
Great games are fundamental to everything we do. We believe that an expanded gaming content organisation—one that enables Xbox Game Studios and ZeniMax’s development studios to collaborate effectively together—will empower those world-class studios to do their best work in growing our portfolio of games players love. Matt Booty will lead this expanded organisation as President, Game Content and Studios.
ZeniMax will continue to operate as a limited integration entity led by Jamie Leder, President and CEO, reporting to Matt. All ZeniMax development studios and ZeniMax Central Services teams will continue reporting to Jamie to maintain and optimise current content development and production cycles. Also, to deepen our partnership and accelerate mutual learning, a number of ZeniMax leaders will now report to those Microsoft leaders with whom their work most closely aligns.
With our innovative devices, products, services, and our global community, Xbox is the primary way we connect games and their creators with players around the world. These experiences are as foundational as the games themselves, whether they are our first-party games or third-party games. To manage the platform of today, and build the platform of tomorrow, we are bringing together the teams that will make this possible. Sarah Bond will lead this team as President of Xbox — bringing together Devices, Player & Creator Experiences, Platform Engineering, Strategy, Business Planning, Data & Analytics and Business Development.
Reporting to Sarah and leading their respective teams will be Ashley McKissick (Corporate Vice President, Player Experiences & Platforms), Kareem Choudhry (Corporate Vice President, Xbox Emerging Technologies), Roanne Sones (Corporate Vice President, Gaming Devices Ecosystem), Lori Wright (Corporate Vice President, Partnerships & Business Development) and Kevin Gammill (Corporate Vice President, Ecosystem Product Management).
We’ve derived success from scaling our shared operations capabilities, so we will expand on that strategy by aligning ZeniMax’s IT and Facilities groups with our portfolio of operations and shared services. At the same time, continued leadership and focus on the effective integration of Activision Blizzard is vital. Dave McCarthy will lead all of these efforts for our business as Chief Operations Officer, Microsoft Gaming.
We have ambitious growth targets for games, players, endpoints and brand love. Our Gaming Marketing organisation, which now includes Bethesda’s Publishing team, plays a crucial role by generating demand, driving engagement and inspiring advocacy among players, creators and partners. Jerret West will continue to lead this team as Chief Marketing Officer, Microsoft Gaming.
As some of you may have seen, our Consumer Sales Organization (CSO) will be joining the Microsoft Gaming team, led by Ami Silverman as Chief Consumer Sales Officer, Microsoft. CSO is the dedicated Microsoft consumer retail vertical, which reaches customers through direct and partner channels in critical markets. Ami’s charter crosses all consumer products, including Devices & Creativity (Windows, Surface, M365) and all things Gaming. This team’s focus will be to transform the gaming sales motions and attract new audiences across geographic markets. Dametra Johnson-Marletti (Corporate Vice President, Consumer Sales Organization) will continue to report into Ami and focus exclusively on Gaming, leveraging the common services and infrastructure of the CSO team.
Continuing in their current roles on my team are Bobby Kotick (Chief Executive Officer, Activision Blizzard, through the end of 2023), Joslyn Main (General Manager, Chief of Staff), Cynthia Per-Lee (Corporate Vice President, Human Resources), Kari Perez (General Manager, Communications), Linda Norman (Corporate Vice President, CELA) and Tim Stuart (Corporate Vice President, Finance).
I’m excited to partner with this team of leaders to advance our mission for the next era of Xbox in service of players and creators. I am confident that they will steer our organization to success in the months and years to come. Please join me in welcoming Ami and her team, and congratulating Matt, Sarah and Dave on their new roles.
Emails are just one vehicle to communicate change. You will hear more from your manager and your leader in the coming days about how these changes may or may not impact your work. We’ll also discuss this evolution of our organisation during our next town hall on Monday October 30th at 1:00PM PT. Thank you for your contributions and dedication to everything we do to bring the joy of gaming to everyone on the planet.
Phil
