Hasbro at 100 — the CEO’s perspective on going digital | The DeanBeat

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With a slowish week at last, I’m able to fondly look back on our GamesBeat Summit 2023 event and think about talks like the fireside chat between Chris Cocks, CEO of Hasbro, and Michael Metzger, partner at Drake Star Partners.

In this talk, which you can watch in the embedded video, Cocks talked about how he became CEO even though he has only been at the company for seven years. He started in 2016 as the president of the Wizards of the Coast division, which publishes Magic: The Gathering. Prior to that, he managed brands at companies such as Microsoft, Leapfrog and Procter & Gamble. He was named CEO in February 2022 as Hasbro — a $6 billion a year company — saw more of its future in digital tech and games.

My takeaway from the session is that Cocks and Hasbro want to be relevant in the modern era of video games and technology, and they will do what it takes to get more relevant — including acquiring other companies.

He’s responsible for household brands like Monopoly, which saw a successful game launch from mobile game publisher Scopely after six years of development. Hasbro also owns Magic, Dungeons & Dragons, Transformers and many others that Cocks wants to take into the digital realm as part of a transformation.

Late last year, Hasbro rolled out a “strategy blueprint” for the company about taking Hasbro back to what made it great in its first century of existence: play. He wants to bring “joy and community” to people around the world through the power of play. That community starts at two or three years old and continues on into adulthood, Cocks said, but he acknowledged the company needs to “reestablish