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."

 

[bedir than]

A lot of people say that, but I wonder. WotC spent quite a bit of time telling us how this wasn't a new edition, highlighting the compatibility with the current iteration of 5E, making a show of how little things were changing, etc. I'm guessing that there was some degree of hope/expectation that a pre-rollout slump could be mitigated (or even avoided), which clearly hasn't happened.

the current D&D slump mostly comes from misreading the ICV2 data as all D&D, when it's not. D&D, the game, seems to only be down over all channels because one book didn't hit last quarter.

 

[_Michael_]

Yeah, trying to retroactively change the OGL wasn't the brightest idea, was it? Good riddance.

 

[ThrorII]

That's a LOT of soft focus!!!
Almost like she cast Blur on herself!!

 

[Von Ether]

We may never know much she was involved in the faux pas this past couple of years, but if they were her decisions then I hope the next round of leadership will do better.

 

[dbolack]

Ironically the thing most likely to make this a higher priority is WotC screwing up once more and creating significant bad press for itself, because managing to create CCBY "SRDs" for 1/2/3/4E (and maybe even RC/BECMI etc.) would be seen as significant good press. If it was prioritized, the whole thing could easily get done in a few weeks, even assuming slow approvals, by a handful of people, so probably in time for a bit of ass-saving.

I am, honestly, sincerely dubious this would generate good press of any lasting value. The people that want this are very likely not ( in a meaningful way ) customers and many of them haven't been since TSR was the brand. Aside from being seen as keeping their word ( which most of ya'll expect them not to do anyway ) - what really is the value of doing this at any faster pace?

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Sadly, I can see her gender being a factor for being scapegoated

Cox can easily claim, "Look at WotC's sales when I was in charge and Hasbro's gains before I hired her." Darkest timeline ever.

Cocks has said nothing but good things about her. And given they have no one yet to replace her suggests she wasn't fired at all, I mean WotC under her was keeping Hssbro afloat, she made unpopular actions, but from the suits POV she made a lot of money until rescently. If Cocks was going to throw anybody under the bus its someone in the toy department, not the most profitable department.

No one wants to say this because its sad, but the suddeness suggests its likely health related, she could be very sick. I hope not, I hope she simply found a job more suitable for her, but we can't ignore the possiblity because its said (I'm no fan WotC under her leadership, but she's still a person).

 

[vecna00]

Aw, now we'll never get Buck Rogers 5e.

Ok, now that really hurts

 

[CM]

I'll just say, searching for wotc on twitter gives a pretty amusing string of posts of people throwing in their hats for the CEO job, talking about how they'd change D&D (tongue in cheek mostly).

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Mod Note:

Gee whiz, y’all! I didn’t realize there was a knife party scheduled for mid-April.

Let’s can the nasty commentary, please.

 

[MichaelSomething]

G4 or G5?

G4. Doing stuff of a My Little Pony Con in May...