New Management Appointments and XBOX Division

This message was simply despatched to Group XBOX workers globally.

Group,

At City Corridor on Tuesday, I talked in regards to the 4 Cs and the alternatives we’re making to place them into observe. You’ve seen a variety of our work on Core and Content material. Right now I wish to share two management appointments supporting Creator and Connection. Kayleen Walters will transition from her function at Mojang to President of XP, a brand new XBOX division targeted on how folks expertise our franchises past the video games themselves, and Maria Angelidou-Smith will be a part of XBOX as CEO of Mojang and Minecraft. Each will report back to me.

Kayleen has spent her profession constructing leisure franchises. Earlier than XBOX, she spent 13 years at Lucasfilm serving to information Star Wars throughout movies, merchandise, and partnerships. At Minecraft, she helped develop shopper merchandise right into a multibillion-dollar enterprise with greater than 250 licensees and was Govt Producer of A Minecraft Film, the most important movie within the U.S. final 12 months and a top-five launch worldwide. She can be a producer of the sequel.

XP is a play on “Expertise Factors” and formalizes 4 funding areas for us: XBOX PICTURES for movie and tv variations; XBOX PRODUCTS for licensing and merchandise; XBOX PARTNERSHIPS for sponsors and model companions; and XBOX PLACES for our marquee broadcast and in-person occasions, theme parks, and different location-based experiences. Our franchises can imply extra to folks than the time they spend enjoying them, and Kayleen is aware of the right way to construct these experiences with the business with out dropping what made folks care in regards to the franchise within the first place.

Kayleen’s transfer additionally gave us time to think twice about what Mojang wants in its subsequent chief.

Minecraft is among the largest communities in leisure. Tons of of thousands and thousands of individuals play, construct, create, educate, watch, mod, run servers, and construct companies round Minecraft. The neighborhood doesn’t simply eat the product. It helps form what the product turns into. That was central to our search. Mojang already has an distinctive recreation improvement group that is aware of Minecraft and its gamers deeply. We needed somebody who has constructed merchandise for communities at monumental scale, who’s deeply technical, and who understands how creators, product, expertise, and monetization come collectively.  

Maria brings a uncommon mixture of these experiences. She spent practically a decade at Meta, the place she led Fb Teams utilized by greater than 1.8 billion folks every month, in addition to Occasions, Creators, Search, Profile, and Monetization. She later led product and expertise at Personio and served as Chief Product Officer at Reddit, one other of the world’s largest neighborhood platforms. She has constructed merchandise utilized by billions of individuals and led product and engineering organizations by means of important progress and alter.

Maria brings deep expertise to Mojang, together with a respect for what makes Minecraft particular. Her first precedence might be studying from the groups and communities who know Minecraft finest. She begins Monday, October 19.

Please be a part of me in congratulating Kayleen and welcoming Maria to XBOX!

Asha