Sony Interactive Entertainment today announced a leadership restructure and several new appointments of key positions, primarily focused on the engineering and finance teams. The management shakeup comes as SIE deputy president John Kodera is getting ready to shift to a new position at Sony leading digital transformation.
Kodera previously led the development of the PlayStation Network and its infrastructure, as well as being responsible for PlayStation Plus. He also led SIE as President and CEO following Andrew House’s departure in 2017 before stepping down himself in 2019 in favor of Jim Ryan.
Hideaki Nishino now steps in reporting directly to Jim Ryan as SVP platform experience. Nishino will “oversee network engineering and operations, R&D, design, data strategy and operations in addition to managing product and platform development.” Nishino joined Sony in 2000, and played a key role in PS4 and PS5 product development. He was the person who introduced the PS5 UI and user experience reveal last year.
VP of global third-party relations Michael Pattinson will now report to Nishino. Pattinson is a key part in the third-party business partnerships for PlayStation, and is a champion for indie devs.
Following a 40 year tenure, SIE deputy president and chief financial officer Kazuhiko Takeda will be retiring in June 2021. In July 2021, Lin Tao will step in as SVP finance, corporate development and strategy, reporting directly to Jim Ryan.
The board of directors for SIE Tokyo is also getting some new faces, including Masayasu Ito as representative director and deputy president, Lin Tao as director and deputy president, and Takeshi Shibata as director.
All of these leadership changes come in addition to the recently announced restructuring of Sony’s Japan Studio. Japan Studio’s Team ASOBI will operate as it’s own studio for SIE Japan, while Japan Studio as a whole will be phased out following departures by numerous key leadership over the last few years.
[Via: VGC]
