EA shuffles leadership team as Samantha Ryan leaves
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Electronic Arts announced a shuffle for its management team as longtime executive Samantha Ryan has decided to leave EA.
The move follows EA’s previous changes where it replaced its chief financial officer and split the responsibility for managing EA’s studios between COO Laura Miele, who is now in charge of EA Entertainment, and Cam Weber, who was elevated to president of EA Sports.
Rachel Franklin, another seasoned exec who was in charge of positive play, will now take over part of Ryan’s responsibilities as the group exec in charge of both Maxis, maker of The Sims 4, and Full Circle, the maker of Skate. Franklin will be senior vice president and group general manager of Lifestyle Entertainment.
Catharina Mallet, general manager of Maxis, and Dan McCulloch, general manager of Full Circle, will report to Franklin. Franklin’s positive play group, which had about 20 people, will be disbanded and those workers will be attached to different studios.
An EA spokesperson said that over the past few months Miele had connected with leaders and teams across EA Entertainment. One of the themes that emerged was the opportunity to better integrate shared capabilities, design features, tech/tools, and social features on the two largest user-generated content brands in the portfolio — The Sims and Skate. The communities around each of these games share many of the same expectations. That’s why it made sense to bring them together under Franklin, EA said.
EA said it will continue to evolve the way it will work and take advantage of these shared capabilities, learning, and tech and ensure studio leaders are focused and
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