Since helping found RockYou back in 2005, Lance Tokuda has been the man at the helm. All that is about to change, as reported by Jason Kincaid from TechCrunch. Tokuda successfully championed several rounds of funding for the Redwood City, CA. based social games and advertising solutions firm. RockYou hasn’t had the easiest of times as of late, and this move from Tokuda indicates that the company is firmly committed to, quite literally, get back in the game.
According to Lisa Marino (via TechCrunch), Tokuda announced his move internally last month; right around the time RockYou started putting it’s shift to a primarily social gaming based company into full effect. As a result of this shift, an undisclosed number of RockYou employees were let go, and former EA executive Jonathan Knight was brought on board in an SVP role. RockYou has also recently added former Gazillion Entertainment Interactive Design guru Steve Cartwright as Office general Manager.
As of now, the top slot at RockYou is being filled by an “Office of the CEO” team, including CFO Steve Van Horne, SVP of Technology and Engineering Shamik Sharma, and COO Lisa Marino. In addition to overseeing the day-to-day operations at RockYou, the team is actively seeking a replacement for Tokuda.
Marino commented that things are Rockyou are “going really well,” and that the company, “is going to be very relevant in social games in around 70 days.” However, Kincaid astutely points out that Tokuda is still listed as CEO of RockYou, and this change of top management was not mentioned in the press surrounding the hiring of Knight.
For now, Tokuda is still with RockYou, and will be working on ‘innovation and strategic initiatives’ moving forward. If Tokuda was instrumental in getting the company off the ground, and up and running, perhaps this new challenge, (did someone say mobile?) is exactly what both Tokuda and RockYou need. If Marino’s words are to be believed, we should expect some game changers from RockYou around mid February. Let’s see if they can, in fact, RockYou (with something new).
Tags: rockyou
