WotC WotC President Cynthia Williams Resigns

Cynthia Williams, who has been president of Wizards of the Coast for the last two years, will be leaving the company at the end of the month, according to an SEC filing dated April 15th. Hasbro is already looking for somebody to step into the role.

Williams worked for Microsoft on the Gaming Ecosystem Commercial Team before joining WotC two years ago, stepping into the role that then-president Chris Cocks vacated when he was promoted to CEO of Hasbro in February 2022.

Item 5.02 Departure of Directors or Certain Officers; Election of Directors; Appointment of Certain Officers; Compensatory Arrangements of Certain Officers.
On April 15, 2024, Cynthia Williams, President of Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro Gaming, informed the Company of her resignation from the Company effective April 26, 2024. The Company is conducting a process to identify her successor, looking at both internal and external candidates.

According to Rascal News, WotC responded with a comment: "We’re excited for Cynthia to take the next step in her career and grateful for the contributions she has made in her more than two years at Wizards and Hasbro. We wish her the absolute best in her next endeavor. We have started the search for our next President of Wizards of the Coast and hope to have a successor in place soon."

 

[bmfrosty]

Not really. There are all kinds of reasons that people leave jobs. Could be personal reasons. Could be she wanted to pursue a different direction in her career. Could be she got a better job. Could be a power struggle at Hasbro. Could be all sorts of things.

Trying to read the tea leaves and draw conclusions is pretty futile, IMO. Maybe more details will eventually be forthcoming, or she turns up in a new position and it is obvious why she left.

Wizards has had an eventful couple of years. The only reason that I care is that they hold stewardship over the D&D brand. I have no interest in the modern version of that particular game.

I'd love to know the inside baseball of what happened over the last couple of years though with the big missteps that she presided over.

 

[DarkCrisis]

My uncle who works at WotC says she left to go run Pathfinder.

 

[Meech17]

Yeah but that's boring. How are we supposed to squeeze out another half-dozen inflammatory YouTube videos unless we spice things up a bit? The algorithm needs some fresh bait and it's been a slow month.

So let's hear about doom! Speculation! Graphs and arrows!

I can't wait for all the clip art level arrows and exclamation points.

 

[overgeeked]

Ho ho, one could never replace senior management with AI, only worker bees!

What's that, I have a call from the board of directors? OK, let me take this. ... They invented what? Really? It can't be any good, though, can it? It costs how much less? Yes, the big guy with no neck just came into my office holding a big empty box. ... Can't we talk about this?

Which is so weird because senior management is the most replaceable with semi-coherent, semi-competent “AI”. No one could tell the difference most days.

 

[overgeeked]

My uncle who works at WotC says she left to go run Pathfinder.

Could she take all the former Paizo designers now working for WotC back with her? Getting tired of the crunch creep.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Y'all are killing me with referring to Williams as CEO. Cocks is the CEO of Hasbro, she was President of WotC. Difference of scale and who's your boss. Cocks was her boss. Cocks' boss is the Board of Directors.

That said, I don't feel like her tenure as prez of WotC did much for D&D nor MtG. I also don't feel like she was terrible for D&D, compared to previous WotC presidents; but MtG's hyper-release schedule and license of everything under the sun imo has been not great from a hobbyist's perspective

 

[Parmandur]

Y'all are killing me with referring to Williams as CEO. Cocks is the CEO of Hasbro, she was President of WotC. Difference of scale and who's your boss. Cocks was her boss. Cocks' boss is the Board of Directors.

That said, I don't feel like her tenure as prez of WotC did much for D&D nor MtG. I also don't feel like she was terrible for D&D, compared to previous WotC presidents; but MtG's hyper-release schedule and license of everything under the sun imo has been not great from a hobbyist's perspective

Yeah, I think she was not super hands on with actual product...which is probably wise, let the designers do their thing.

 

[mamba]

That said, I don't feel like her tenure as prez of WotC did much for D&D nor MtG

she was not there long enough for much of her impact to be visible yet imo. If this is about her work at WotC at all, then this probably has more to do with the VTT than anything else.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Yeah but that's boring. How are we supposed to squeeze out another half-dozen inflammatory YouTube videos unless we spice things up a bit? The algorithm needs some fresh bait and it's been a slow month.

So let's hear about doom! Speculation! Graphs and arrows!

Something tells me that gaming lawyer guy is going to be all over YouTube's front page for me again.

 

[Gladius Legis]

Sure, if you're actually literally fired. We know that didn't happen; she resigned. What we don't know is whether her resignation was made under pressure from above -- if she was essentially told, "We'll let you quit if you make it snappy. Otherwise we'll fire you. Your choice."

Locking your accounts and having security walk you out the same day is for working stiffs, not executives.

On the other hand, she may have been the one who initiated it. We're unlikely to find out for sure, but that won't stop us speculating.

At the C-suite level it's actually better to be fired than to quit. If you're fired for any reason other than for cause, you get a buyout.