Xbox Chief Marketing Officer Jerret West is leaving for Roblox - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 02 August 2024 / 5,043 Views
Xbox chief marketing officer Jerret West is leaving the company on June 30 to join Roblox as its new CMO and head of market expansion. This is according to an internal memo from Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer sent to employees, which was obtained by The Verge.
West was first hired by Xbox in 2005 as the Senior Global Product Manager and worked his way up to Director of Marketing. He would leave in 2011 to work at American Express until 2013. He would end up working at Netflix for seven years from 2013 to 2019 as the Vice President/Head of Marketing. He would rejoin Xbox in December 2019 as the Chief Marketing Officer at Xbox.
With West leaving Xbox, there will be some changes as the Gaming Leadership Team and I have decided to place marketing closer to the businesses they support. Games marketing will sit inside of Studios, Xbox marketing will sit inside the Xbox team, international marketing will sit inside of the Consumer Sales Org, and our centralized marketing team will report to me."
On July 1, the Integrated Marketing team led by Kirsten Ward and the Programming and Events team led by Tina Summerford" will join together as the Central Gaming Marketing team under Ward, who will report directly to Spencer.
The Bethesda Publishing Marketing team, which is led by Erin Losi, and the first-party Games Marketing Team including Xbox Game Studios and Mojang, which is led by Aaron Greenberg, will move to the Game Content and Studios and will report to Matt Booty.
The Xbox Marketing team, which is led by Chris Lee, will move to the Xbox organization and report to Sarah Bond.
The International Marketing team, led by Jim McMullin and Florian Liewer, and the Bethesda International Marketing team, led by Adam Carter, will love to the Consumer Sales Org and will report to Ami Silverman. Carter will also take on a new role leading Business Operations at Bethesda and will report to Jill Braff.
Read the entire memo from Spencer below:
I have some news to share with all of you: Jerret West, who has served as the Chief Marketing Officer of Xbox for four and a half years, will be leaving Microsoft to join Roblox as their new CMO and Head of Market Expansion. His last day will be June 30th.
On behalf of Team Xbox, I’d like to thank Jerret for everything he accomplished. During his time here, Jerret was instrumental in launching and growing communities like our Xbox social universe to 120M followers strong, and product expansion like Game Pass which is now available in more than 80 countries worldwide. He oversaw the creation and delivery of global marketing campaigns for numerous games, platforms (console, PC, cloud) and brand moments such as this year’s momentous Xbox Games Showcase. Roblox is an important partner for Xbox, and we look forward to working with Jerret and the Roblox team to connect more people around the world through the power of play.
As a team we are committed to growing the strong marketing capability in Gaming. Going forward, the Gaming Leadership Team and I have decided to place marketing closer to the businesses they support. Games marketing will sit inside of Studios, Xbox marketing will sit inside the Xbox team, international marketing will sit inside of the Consumer Sales Org, and our centralized marketing team will report to me. The following organizational changes will be effective on July 1st:
The Integrated Marketing team led by Kirsten Ward and the Programming and Events team led by Tina Summerford will come together as an expanded Central Gaming Marketing team under Kirsten, who will report to me as a member of the Gaming Executive Leadership Team. Chief of staff Pav Bhardwaj and executive assistant Kim Nold will report to Kirsten.
The Bethesda Publishing Marketing team, led by Erin Losi, will move to Game Content and Studios, reporting to Matt Booty.
The 1P Games Marketing Team including Xbox Game Studios and Mojang, led by Aaron Greenberg, will also move to Game Content and Studios, reporting to Matt.
The Xbox Marketing team, led by Chris Lee, will move to the Xbox Org, reporting to Sarah Bond.
The International Marketing team, led by Jim McMullin and Florian Liewer, will move to the Consumer Sales Org, reporting to Ami Silverman.
The Bethesda International Marketing team, led by Adam Carter, will also move to the Consumer Sales Org. Adam will be taking on a new role leading Business Operations at Bethesda, reporting to Jill Braff. The Consumer Sales Org will work on backfilling his role and share more at a later date.
We’re fortunate to have a deep bench of talent and experience, and I’m excited to see how our marketing will evolve under their leadership.
Phil
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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I suppose this is interesting as a piece of business news. But I don't really think it's really relevant to the gaming experience.
As a piece of business news, I think it goes to show you how big of a deal Roblox is. This dude is leaving a CMO position at Microsoft, one of the largest companies in the world, to take a similar job at a much smaller firm. It tells us that he sees massive opportunity at Roblox.
Damn xbot kids are in full force here lmao!!
Give it a rest kids, this is nothing serious to get angry about
Smart of West to jump off the stinking boat
If you ask me he had his hands tied because it's the only thing that makes sense. Also worth noting how Nadella lost his Xbox performance bonuses for three years straight. Maybe the people leaving are tired of Xbox underperforming and losing money.
do you really believe that xbox brand is losing $$$?
Never said that. Xbox doesn't perform adequately and executives don't receive their bonuses so they lose money. Executives are leaving and Nadella is tightening Xbox' screws. It's not that hard to figure why.
That bonus was only tied to Game Pass performance, not Xbox collectively. MS dropped the bonus last year. Acquisition of ABK makes it so Xbox doesn't need to rely on Game Pass to grow substantially to keep Xbox profitable.
FY21 and FY22: Game Pass target missed. FY23 Xbox content and services target missed. Target was 4.4% and grew a 0.7% instead.
They can see the writing on the wall that the Xbox is dying, and seeking greener pastures as a result. That's my guess
Give it a rest
Why don't you just send a message to the author of the article and tell them to stop posting bad news about Xbox instead.
most people dont know who west is and dont regard this as bad news and could care less.
It's not good nor bad news. You likely had no idea who this guy was or what his job title was before this article released, yet you want to doom post about it because it's xbox related. Grow up.
"I'm not a console warrior, how can I be when Xbox is dead?!"
Calling me a console warrior when TSLOG and Esparadrapo posts were very similar to my post. Are we all console warriors?
The user who always finds himself in situations like this one because he is constantly posting console warrior-like comments, then when called out on these comments defends his position with even more console warrior-like comments such as (paraphrasing) "How can I be a console warrior when Xbox is dead?" which he somehow believes is a good defence against being called a console warrior, is a console warrior, correct.
I wouldn't use Tslog to back yourself up either, that dude is well known and meme'd on by practically everybody because he is always moaning or complaining and posting hot takes about something, it doesn't matter whether it's Xbox, PS, Nintendo, PC, it's a miracle when he isn't his usual negative self, he comes across as a bot whose input is "post hot takes" I wouldn't call him a console warrior because I genuinely don't know what the f*ck he likes.
You have history though, I have little knowledge of Esparadrapo but there's a big difference between "Xbox underperforming/losing money" (although, I could easily debate that statement, we have confirmation they make money, it's the underperforming part that can be debated) and straight up saying "Xbox is dying" which is complete nonsense.
You don't know whether this is good news or bad news, people change careers all the time, everyone was excited about Jerret West returning to Xbox but then his entire time being back, Xbox fans have been complaining about Xbox's marketing (which he was responsible for) so in fact a lot of Xbox fans are happy that he is being replaced, as for me, I will wait and see the actual results of his replacement.
No we aren't all; but you are for sure even if you keep writing that you are not in the "console war"; you are probably one of the most active in that front here.
Dude, you are posting shit like that in every possible Xbox thread/article. You are antagonizing everyone who is supporting or favors Xbox for some reason.
There is a difference between favoring/preferring one console (or ecosystem) over others and taking a point on "pissing" on another system over and over (which is probably what can qualify as 'console' warriors')...
There are a lot of good and bad articles about all systems. Still, you are always posting bad stuff about Xbox no matter what, and this "how can I blah blah blah when it is already dead/dying" is def. in line with that; the only reason to post that crap is to antagonize the other side; nothing else. (on top of being complete nonsense) or attacking users based on their avatar like it makes any positive comment about one console/system invalid because he/she "is a fanboy."...
Just stop. Enjoy your preferred console/system and stop acting like that.
hes a sony shareholder
Lol this is actually an improvement. The last thing Xbox has had since West returned was good marketing. May want to educate yourself on who is who before making naive comments like this.
Also this may come as a surprise, but people change jobs all the time. Maybe, just maybe, West got an offer he couldn’t pass up.
You have to make up your mind. He's either dead weight or someone worth being poached.
If you ask me he had his hands tied because it's the only thing that makes sense. Also worth noting how Nadella lost his Xbox performance bonuses for three years straight. Maybe the people leaving are tired of Xbox underperforming and losing money.
Sony or Nintendo don’t have this amount of people leaving the company.
Also, Matt Booty the person most responsible for Xbox Disasters of last few years is unbelievably still there.
Sony and Nintendo also don't have as many staff either..
Essay Pro