Yesterday, the CEO of Riot Games Nicolo Laurent stepped down from his role, being replaced by the company’s President Dylan Jadeja. Laurent will transition from CEO to an advisory role and Jadeja will assume Laurent’s role over the next few months.
Laurent had been employed by Riot Games as CEO since 2017, while Jadeja, who will now fill his role, spent over five years serving as Riot Games’ President.
The future of Riot is in great hands. We’re proud to announce that our current global president, Dylan Jadeja, will become our next CEO later this year.
Read more: https://t.co/fUuUC6D0Oj
— Riot Games (@riotgames) May 11, 2023
Jajeda will replace Laurent as Riot Games’CEO
Jadeja has been with Riot Games for over 10 years, joining the company in 2011 as Chief Financial Officer before expanding his responsibilities and becoming the Chief Operating Officer three years later. In 2017 he became the President of Riot Games. Before joining Riot, Jajeda served as a Vice President of Goldman Sachs.
Ex-CEO Laurent confirmed that selecting Jajeda as his successor has been unanimously decided by the company’s Board, as well as advisors and founders. He announced his departure from his role as the CEO of Riot Games via Twitter, stating his family as the reason for his departure:
After 14 years at Riot and 6 as CEO, later this year I’ll check off something that’s been on my quest log for a while: Stepping away from CEO to focus on family, plan a relocation back to France, and play flex queue with my four kids (wishful thinking on that last bit). <1/3>
— nicolo (@niiicolo) May 11, 2023
Riot’s scandals
Laurent has been through a lot during his time at Riot Games: from all the scandals to Tencent buying a large part of the company, to the development of the Netflix hit series Arcane.
Like in the case of Activision Blizzard, the biggest scandal Riot had to deal with was when the company was sued for sexism in the workplace in 2018. According to the information that surfaced back then, Riot Games’ employees were exposed to sexism and insults by their colleagues, while the management made sexual jokes, and the women were sent explicit photos of their colleagues without being asked. That lawsuit was recently settled for $100 million.
To what extent Laurent is or was involved in this is unclear, however, he did face accusations of sexual harassment by his former assistant two years ago. but was acquitted. As for sexism within the workplace, it’s also not clear how much he knew.
However, much like Activision Blizzard’s Bobby Kotick, he appears to have protected executives involved in the sexism scandal and swept the incidents under the rug. Although Laurent always denied any wrongdoings, the allegations against him allegedly caused Riot to lose a big sponsor.
Riot Games will pay over 1,500 women compensation following the $100 million settlement of a gender discrimination lawsuit. https://t.co/93DvXRpKlU pic.twitter.com/tVGFBVCHsj
— IGN (@IGN) May 5, 2023
New goal for Riot
In the letter about his transition to Riot Games CEO, Jadeja said that his goal is for the company is to be:
“…the most trusted and authentic gaming company in the world… built by players for players.”
Whether he can pull this off, after Riot has such a complicated history, will be seen when he takes on the role of CEO in a few months.
Header: Riot Games
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