GameStop has announced three new members to its Board of Directors, William “Bill” Simon, James “J.K” Symancyk, and Reginald “Reggie” Fils-Aime, the former President of Nintendo who retired from the company last year. William Simon is a seasoned executive with more than 30 years of operational and strategic advisory experience. James Symancyk has 25 years of executive leadership and operational experience in the retail and consumer products industries. This comes after several members of the Board have decided to retire.
Kathy Vrabeck, the Board Chair said: “On behalf of the entire Board and management team, I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to Dan, Gerald, Larry and Steve for their significant contributions to GameStop. During their tenure, the Company has made important progress executing on our objective of becoming a leading omni-channel retailer with top market share in the gaming category, and we appreciate their thoughtful leadership, guidance and service. Looking ahead, we are excited about the progress our new leadership team has made to date. We are confident they will continue to accelerate the Company’s turnaround and transformation to drive shareholder value as they pursue opportunities to create meaningful entertainment experiences for our customers and enhance partnerships with gaming publishers and console and PC developers.”
George Sherman, CEO of GameStop said “The Board refreshment and governance enhancements announced today represent an important milestone in GameStop’s transformation as we continue to evolve the Company’s business strategy for long-term success. We are pleased to welcome Reggie, Bill, and J.K. to the Board. They are each highly qualified and bring significant, relevant experience to our turnaround. We look forward to immediately benefitting from their expertise and perspectives as we navigate the evolving gaming and retail environments, execute on our strategic initiatives and prepare the Company to maximize value-creation associated with the next generation of console launches later this year.” Reggie Fils Aime tweeted out a response to the announcement saying:
One of the new initiatives that GameStop has been working on is store rebrand from a place that was just about getting games to more of a hangout spot where people can gather to play games. During this generation, as things have gone to more of digital infrastructure, GameStop has slowly suffered so they are trying new ways to gather more profit. Whether or not this new rebrand and shift in focus for the company will be a success, only time will tell.