GameStop chief operating officer Owens leaves after 7 months
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[October 30, 2021] By
Svea Herbst-Bayliss
(Reuters) - GameStop Corp, the company
whose stock became a sensation with day traders this year, said on
Friday that Jenna Owens agreed to leave, just seven months after joining
the video game retailer as it is chief operating officer.
It is the first major executive departure at GameStop since the company
hired a new chief executive officer, Matt Furlong, in June.
Owens, who was a top executive at Amazon.com Inc and Alphabet Inc's
Google, joined GameStop in March. She was one of the technology veterans
recruited by Ryan Cohen, the co-founder and former CEO of online pet
food retailer Chewy Inc, as he laid the groundwork to transform the
moribund brick-and-mortar retailer into an e-commerce powerhouse.
GameStop did not provide a reason for Owens' departure, which is
effective immediately. The company said in a regulatory filing that it
and Owens had reached a "separation agreement," which is typically
negotiated when companies and their executives do not see eye-to-eye.
GameStop also used separation agreements when it parted ways with its
chief financial officer Jim Bell and chief executive officer George
Sherman earlier this year. They were replaced by Furlong as CEO and Mike
Recupero as CFO.
Owens will be entitled to a severance package, the filing said. Her
duties will be taken up by other senior GameStop managers.
The company declined to comment beyond the filing. Owens could not
immediately be reached for comment.
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A GameStop store is seen in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of New
York City, New York, U.S. January 27, 2021. Picture taken January
27, 2021. REUTERS/Nick Zieminski/File Photo
Cohen and two other former Chewy executives joined the GameStop board in
January, right before retail investors piled into the company's stock and drove
it up more than 2,500%. The shares have given up some of their gains and
GameStop is now valued at roughly $14 billion.
Since becoming chairman in June, Cohen has pushed aggressively to improve
customers' experience but has not offered a detailed plan about how GameStop
will achieve its digital transformation..
The Grapevine, Texas-based company's business of selling video games for
consoles faces competition from streaming services such as those of Apple Inc,
which allow users to play video games on their TV sets without a console
required.
Cohen recruited a number of executives from Amazon, including Furlong and
Elliott Wilkie who joined as chief growth officer in March.
Public records and filings show the company has hired dozens of new executives
with supply chain and technology backgrounds from companies including Chewy and
ecommerce company Zulily.
Cohen and Furlong have also let go several senior employees in recent months who
have not fit their system, the two sources said.
(Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss in Boston; Editing by Greg Roumeliotis)
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