All Change At WotC: New President Arrives From Microsoft As Greg Leeds Resigns

WotC's President, Greg Leeds, has resigned, to be replaced by Microsoft's Chris Cocks. The changeover takes place on June 6th, with Leeds staying on to facilitate a smooth transfer. Greg Leeds has been President of WotC for 8 years, since 2008. Chris Cock's most recent position was Vice President of OEM Technical Sales at Microsoft. The full press release is below.

Chris Cocks
​

[h=4]Press Release[/h]
PAWTUCKET, R.I.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Hasbro, Inc. today announced that Greg Leeds has resigned as President of Wizards of the Coast, and will be replaced by Chris Cocks who joins the company from Microsoft. Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro, offers games and entertainment under world-renowned brands such as MAGIC: THE GATHERING, DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, and DUEL MASTERS. Leeds has served as the President of Wizards of the Coast since 2008, and started at Hasbro in 2001. He will stay on to ensure a smooth transition to Cocks, who will officially join the team in Seattle on June 6.

“We are incredibly thankful to Greg for the tremendous contributions he has made to Hasbro, especially during his time leading Wizards of the Coast,” said John Frascotti, President, Hasbro Brands. “Today, thanks to Greg’s commitment and passion, Wizards of the Coast’s brands are stronger than ever. Though MAGIC: THE GATHERING was introduced more than 20 years ago, it is more relevant and popular today than it’s ever been, with a record number of people around the world playing the game and participating in MAGIC organized play events.”

Leeds will be replaced by Chris Cocks, who most recently served as Vice President, OEM Technical Sales at Microsoft Corporation, where he led a global sales and technical engagement team. Prior to his eight-year tenure with Microsoft, Chris served as Vice President of Educational Games at LeapFrog, where he led a cross-discipline team to drive hardware planning, software design and development, marketing and channel management. He began his career in brand management at Procter & Gamble and served in product management and marketing leadership positions in Xbox and MSN, including work on hit franchises like Halo and Fable, prior to joining Leapfrog. Cocks is an avid player and fan of Wizards of the Coast brands, including MAGIC: THE GATHERING and DUNGEONS & DRAGONS.

“We’re very excited to welcome Chris to the Wizards of the Coast family,” said Frascotti. “As an avid fan and player with extensive digital experience, I’m confident Chris is the right person to help us build on the tremendous momentum around our brands and take the franchise to the next level by delivering exciting new experiences to our growing and passionate fan base around the world."

See the list of ex-WotC employees here.

 

[martinlochsen]

Looks like the right man for the job, really. Too early to tell of course, but I see more reasons to be hopeful than to be negative here. He's got experience from computer games, he's a D&D fan and he writes fantasy books for young people on the side. For a suit, that really is as good as it gets. Experience from Microsoft shows that he's probably got the business side of things under control as well.

I wish him good luck

 

[Ricochet]

Interesting hire for sure. Hope he can bring D&D into the digital age.

 

[Queer Venger]

Im very optimistic of this change, under Leeds we got 4e after all. This new guy at least plays D&D and Magic, and seems to come with a lot of experience from Silicone Valley.

Plus cocks have always been very good to me

 

[jayoungr]

I know nothing about the guy, so I have no idea whether his hiring is good news, bad news, or just "meh" news.

I wouldn't mind digital options for D&D books myself, but I hope it won't turn into only digital.

Also, I wonder if he'll be willing to reconsider the issue of translating the books into other languages. I never understood why they wouldn't go for that.

 

[darjr]

Good sleuthing mistwell! Interesting. I have heard that WotC has been quietly rebooting the board game division. Shelly Mazinoble moved over, for instance, and has said they have big plans.

 

[Morrus]

Looks like he has a pen name. And I'd say that confirms he's a genuine geek

That's interesting. Twitter account isn't very active though!

 

[Gnarl45]

I think it's great to have a computer geek and a D&D fan at the head of Wizards of the Coast! I hope we'll get dozens of D&D computer games like in the 90s.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I fully expect this hire will have little to no impact on the Dungeons & Dragons game in the short-term, and by the time the long-term comes about that some things in D&D might be changing, we will have absolutely no idea if they were directly related to the hiring of Chris Cooks as President of WotC, or if they were always in the pipeline already.

DMs Guild apparently had been in various stages of planning for years. So we can't say any particular hire that occurred during those years directly impacted DMs Guild's eventual release. By the same token... we have no idea what the planning stages of any digital offerings might be, or if/when they are scheduled for release. So we cannot say this hire will or will not matter to it if/when something gets released down the line.

By the sake token... even if Cooks' hiring DID directly impact it, it'll be far enough in the future that no one will actually care whether it was due to his arrival at that point anymore. All that will matter is that it happened. I mean, is anyone right now going "Thank goodness 'X' was brought in to the company now that the DMs Guild is in place!"? Nope. None of us care who is/was responsible for it. So getting excited/depressed by this hiring of Cooks is pretty much unnecessary in my opinion.

 

[Desh-Rae-Halra]

Wow, this thread revealed a bunch of, I mean about, Cocks

 

[Reinhart]

Looks like he has a pen name. And I'd say that confirms he's a genuine geek

I'm genuinely impressed he managed to put out a line of YA novels while also managing other teams and projects. I guess that's the level of organization and executive skills you should expect from the CEO of a multimillion dollar firm.