After spending over 14 years in leadership roles at Riot Games, longtime CEO Nicolo Laurent has stepped down from his position to focus on his family. Laurent also announced that Dylan Jadeja will be the company’s new CEO.
Although this news might come as a shock to some, Laurent said that he had been wrestling with this decision for a long time, and that the decision stems from the personal trade-offs that have come with the many years of working as the head of a video game giant. He also shared that he and his family were planning to move back to France.
Of the decision to name Jadeja as his replacement, Laurent said it was a unanimous decision by Riot’s Board, founders, advisors, and a search firm.
“For the first time in Riot’s history, we looked both inside and outside the company to find the very best person for this role and for Riot’s next chapter,” Laurent said in a statement. “The succession planning process lasted about three years, and we met with a lot of incredible candidates.”
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Jadeja has spent more than five years as the company’s president, and he has been a member of Riot’s senior executive team for over a decade.
“Over the next few months, my intention is to use this transition window to listen and (re)learn,” Jadeja said in his own statement. “I want to engage with parts of Riot that I haven’t in some time, particularly on the product side. We’ve made a lot of changes in the past few years, and with your help, I’d like to take stock of where we are and get a deeper understanding of what’s working and what we can do better.”
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