Eight days ago, the 2024 Xbox Games Showcase was held and was widely praised as one of the company"s best such events in years. However, today, the company confirmed that the head of marketing for the Xbox division is departing for another gig.
The Verge has posted an internal email from Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer, revealing that Jerret West, who has been the Xbox chief marketing officer since late 2019, will leave the company on June 30. He will become the chief marketing officer and head of market expansion for the online game creation platform Roblox.
West has had two major tours of duty at the Xbox division, He worked in marketing for eight years before leaving in 2011. After serving as the head of marketing for Netflix, West rejoined Microsoft as its head of Xbox marketing and helped to launch the Xbox Series S and X consoles in 2020 along with Xbox Game Pass.
Now that West is joining Roblox, Spencer revealed in the internal email that it will be making some organizational changes to the gaming marketing teams. The memo stated:
Games marketing will sit inside of Studios, Xbox marketing will sit inside the Xbox team, international marketing will sit inside of the Consumer Sales Org, and our centralized marketing team will report to me.
The new Xbox Central Gaming Marketing team will be led by Kirsten Ward, who previously led the Integrated Marketing team for the Xbox team. Ward will now become a new member of the Microsoft Gaming Executive Leadership Team and will report directly to Spencer.
The Bethesda Publishing Marketing team, and the 1P Games Marketing team that includes Xbox Game Studios and Mojang, will now be a part of the company"s Game Content and Studios division that"s led by Matt Booty. The Xbox Marketing team will now report to Xbox President Sarah Bond.