More key executives resign from Zynga
The troubled game maker loses its chief marketing officer and CTO of infrastructure, the latest in a growing executive exodus.
Zynga's chief marketing executive and CTO of infrastructure resigned today, joining a parade of executives fleeing the troubled game maker.
The resignation of CMO Jeff Karp was announced today in a regulatory filing (PDF) with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. CTO of Infrastructure Allan Leinwand revealed on his LinkedIn page that he had assumed the position of CTO for platform development at cloud services company ServiceNow
Karp's resignation comes a month after the departure of Chief Operating Officer John Schappert, who resigned in early August after being replaced as head of the games division in a corporate restructuring.
Zynga's statement on the departure of Karp, who joined the company a little more than a year ago:
Jeff Karp is leaving Zynga, and the groups in his organization have been realigned under appropriate existing divisions. Our marketing and revenue teams have always been industry leaders, and as we continue our transition toward mobile and multiplatform game creation and distribution, their continued execution will be key to our future success. We are grateful to Jeff for his contributions over the last year and wish him well in his future endeavors.
Karp and Leinwand join an exodus of executives over the past couple of weeks at the San Francisco-based game company. In addition to Schappert, Mike Verdu, chief creative officer, announced his departure late last month after three years with the company. Verdu aims to start his own game startup, in which Zynga will make an investment.
Other recent departures include Ya-Bing Chu, a vice president in the company's mobile division, and Jeremy Strauser, a general manager. Erik Bethke, a general manager of Mafia Wars 2, and Alan Patmore, a general manager for CityVille, both publicly revealed their departure from the company in July.
Zynga, which has been struggling to maintain user engagement, turned in disappointing second-quarter earnings in July, causing its stock price to nose-dive more than 40 percent. Its shares were down six cents today, or about 2 percent, to close at $2.82, slightly above its 52-week low of $2.66.