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."

 

[Micah Sweet]

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

Since when has any large corporation cared about the hobbyist perspective?

 

[CleverNickName]

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

They should mention the OGL in their next YouTube video. I know it's old news and completely unrelated, but it still gets clicks. Somehow.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

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.

Not that I would wish our AI thread on anyone, but you can find a lot of people there sure that AI could never replace them. That kind of thinking doesn't go away as one is more highly paid.

 

[Mistwell]

Unless you've heard something I haven't . . .

We don't know if the older editions being released into Creative Commons is a thing somebody at WotC is purposefully killing or delaying.

The more likely scenario is that it is just a low priority. And they just had a round of layoffs, and are prepping for an important book release with the new 2024 rules.

Doing so is a good PR move, but . . . it's not going to have a huge impact on WotC's bottom line, so . . . low priority.

It's got to be the lowest priority on the list. It's, from their perspective, nearly meaningless. Nobody who wants that, wants it as a current customer of WOTC current products. It can already be done through the SRD, and the sub-group of "won't use the SRD anymore" and "wants CC" has nearly zero overlap with "Current WOTC customer." So why would that be even on a top 100 list of priorities for a new CEO of a company whose #1 product is Magic: The Gathering?

 

[michaeljpastor]

Hopefully the new boss, whomever they are, will actually allow the older edition SRDs to go into Creative Commons.

and Gamma World

 

[overgeeked]

Not that I would wish our AI thread on anyone, but you can find a lot of people there sure that AI could never replace them. That kind of thinking doesn't go away as one is more highly paid.

Anything that can be automated will be.

 

[CleverNickName]

Anything that can be automated will be.

We have a similar slogan in my line of work: "If it can be automated, it already has been."

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Y'all are killing me with referring to Williams as CEO. Cocks is the CEO of Hasbro, she was President of WotC.

I believe her correct title was Cynthia Williams, Wizard of the 12th Realm of Ephysiyies, Master of Light and Shadow, Manipulator of Magical Delights, Devourer of Chaos, Champion of the Great Halls of Terr'akkas. The elves know her as Fi'an Yalok. The dwarves know her as Zoenen Hoogstandjes. And she is also known in the northeast as Gaismuenas Meistar. And there may be other secret names that could cause your stock portfolio to burst into flames if you dared speak them.

 

[tetrasodium]

Would that require resigning, though? Maybe I'm conflating this with sitting on boards (as opposed to being president of a company), but I thought it wasn't unknown for someone to hold positions with multiple companies simultaneously.

Depends on contracts. NDAs and non-competes can conflict a lot

 

[MGibster]

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

Well....... I've never been involved in terminating a CEO, but I have been involved in terminating executives and at least at my company we treat them them same as working stiffs. IS turns off their network access while we're telling the executive they're being terminated and then they're escorted off the premises.