The new Xbox CEO is showing no signs of slowing down the changes she is making to Microsoft"s gaming division. Today, it has come to light that there have been more hires to fill out the leadership positions, bringing in a new Chief Strategy Officer and a new Chief Technology Officer.
According to an internal memo, via The Verge, sent to Xbox employees, Asha Sharma has brought in Matthew Ball as the new Chief Strategy Officer. He is most known for being the industry analyst that publishes the yearly The State of Video Gaming report, and is described by Sharma as "widely respected across gaming, media, and technology."
Previously, Ball had spent time in various leadership roles at companies such as Illumination, Amazon Studios, Otter Media, and Accenture Strategy. Ball is said to be tackling the future of Xbox strategy issue alongside Sharma going forward.
Next, Scott Van Vliet has joined Xbox as the new Chief Technology Officer. His previous roles at Microsoft were leading Azure OpenAI and Microsoft Teams" engineering. Before that, his background includes working at Amazon Game Studios, Alexa, and Amazon App Store. “Scott has also been part of the XBOX community since the original Live beta in 2002," says Sharma.
Alongside adding new roles, Sharma is also bringing up the former VP of partnerships and business development, Chris Schnakenberg, to the Corporate Vice President, Partnerships & Business Development position. His previous experience includes 12 years at Activision Blizzard working on partner relations and business strategy. With the promotion, Schnakenberg is said to be working with third-party projects and companies partnered with Xbox.
“These changes are about strengthening our foundation by creating more clarity and improving execution,” Sharma has added in the memo. “As we head toward Showcase and beyond, we’ll continue making the changes needed to position XBOX for the future.”
This is the second big leadership change to hit the Xbox division just this month. Sharma introduced five new roles into the company a couple of weeks ago, all from the CoreAI group she was previously in charge of at Microsoft.