In what is becoming increasingly familiar news to industry watchers this year, Zynga lost another executive today, though this particular departure seems more pleasant than most.
Chief financial officer David Wehner has left for what Zynga tells us is a senior finance position at Facebook. Mark Vranesh, Zynga's chief accounting officer who came to the company from network security company Fortinet, will replace him.
"Mark Vranesh and I have been close partners during my tenure at Zynga and I wish my colleagues well as the company continues to deliver on its vision," Wehner said in a statement sent by Zynga on Tuesday.
This isn't the first time Vranesh has worn Zynga's CFO shoes: he served that position from May 2008 through August 2010 as well, before transitioning back to CAO.
The company did a bit of executive shuffling as part of the transition: former chief mobile officer David Ko is its new chief operations officer, former executive vp of business and corporate development (and, before that, EA executive) Barry Cottle its its new chief revenue officer, and Steven Chiang, formerly the VP of games (and also formerly of EA), is now the president of games.
Zynga has lost quite a few executives since posting heavy losses back in July. Perhaps most famous among these was COO John Schappert, who made headlines by filing his resignation soon after being stripped of most of his duties at the company.
Other chief officers who have left the company since then include CCO Mike Verdu, CTO Allan Leinwand, CMO and CRO Jeff Karp, and CSO Nils Puhlmann.
I wouldn't crow about this. If you believe Zynga's business is rotten to the core, this is the worst possible outcome. The executives - i.e., that rotten core - are all abandoning ship (probably after cashing out pretty nicely) and getting more executive jobs elsewhere. When that's done it's the regular employees - most of whom probably just wanted to make some games - who will be out of a job.
Zynga has a lot of problems. On-the-ground execution isn't one of them. But those are the people who are going to be hurt when this is over.
Zynga has a lot of problems. On-the-ground execution isn't one of them. But those are the people who are going to be hurt when this is over.