Hirings and firings at D&D over the last few years: a changing of the guard?

Over the last few years, there's been a major changing of the guard over at Dungeons & Dragons. Wizards of the Coast is looking for its third president in three years, the D&D 5E lead team of Mearls, Crawford, and Perkins, is gone, and a slew of new game design hires have taken place this year. This all followed a massive sweep of layoffs by WotC owner Hasbro back in 2023, where over a thousand employees lost their jobs, including about 100 from WotC itself. Dan Ayoub now heads D&D, and is spearheading a new 'franchise' model, and the brand as a whole is turning its gaze back on the past with announcements of a new ICONS line and a renewed focus on older worlds and legacy creators.

While it's impossible to track every staff change at a company the size of Wizards of the Coast, we have covered some of the main events over the last few years.

• WotC President Chris Cocks is Hasbro's New CEO (Jan 2022)
• WotC Has A New President (Feb 2022)
• Hasbro Laying Off 1100 Employees (December 2023)
• WotC President Cynthia Williams Resigns (April 2024)
• New WotC President Is World of Warcraft's John Hight (July 2024)
• D&D Hiring New Game Designer Months After Firing Many (Aug 2024)
• Hasbro Hit With Layoffs, Wizards of the Coast Impacted (October 2024)
• D&D's Christopher Perkins Promoted to Creative Director (Oct 2024)
• Wizards of the Coast Is Hiring a D&D Worldbuilder (Feb 2025)
• 90% Of D&D's Project Sigil Team Laid Off (March 2025)
• Chris Perkins Announces Retirement from Dungeons & Dragons (April 2025)
• Jeremy Crawford Also Leaving D&D Team Later This Month (April 2025)
• 3% Of Hasbro's Workforce Laid Off (June 2025)
• Todd Kenreck Let Go from WotC (June 2025)
• Jess Lanzillo Departs Wizards of the Coast (June 2025)
• Wizards of the Coast Hiring New Lead Designer and Head of Game Ecosystem for D&D (June 2025)
• Dungeons & Dragons Shifts to Franchise Model, Dan Ayoub Named as Head (July 2025)
• James Ohlen Shifts From Archetype Entertainment Head to Creative Consultant for Tabletop RPGs at Wizards (Dec 2025)
• Justice Ramin Arman Promoted to Game Design Director of Dungeons & Dragons (Dec 2025)
• Taylor Navarro Joins Wizards of the Coast as D&D Designer (Jan 2026)
• Wizards Hires Erin Roberts as Game Designer for D&D (Jan 2026)
• Leon Barillaro Joins Wizards of the Coast as D&D Designer (Jan 2026)
• James Haeck Joins Wizards of the Coast as Senior D&D Designer (Jan 2026)
• Wizards of the Coast hiring TRPG Publishing Lead to coordinate third-party publishing (April 2026)
• Wizards of the Coast is hiring a senior AI engineer for customer-facing features (June 2026)
• John Hight steps down as president of Wizards of the Coast (July 2026)
• LaTia Jacquise let go from Wizards of the Coast (October 2026)
• Celeste Conowitch hired by Wizards of the Coast as Senior Game Developer for Dungeons & Dragons (October 2026)

 

[EthanSental]

Seeing many of the recent hires, I’m enjoying and looking forward to their ideas hitting the various upcoming books.

 

[sevenbastard]

I dont know enough about who approves what and when in the time line choices were made to judge how these change impact D&D and the parts I like and don't like.

I just hope we see some quality products the boost the brand and keep it going strong.

 

[Koloth]

Commenting on employee churn at WOTC/Hasbro has been a multi decade hobby on this forum. Fairly common around Xmas during the 3.x era. WOTC may be a great place to get experience and probably looks good on a resume but don't plan on a Hasbro embossed retirement check.

Yet products keep getting made and sold and people keep buying so the Hasbro formula seems to be working.

 

[J-H]

IIRC, the average tenure at a major publicly held company is something like 4 years, so this isn't too surprising.

 

[TerraDave]

There was a big pivot starting in summer of 2025, leading to major changes in strategy for the brand that have become more and more apparent in recent months.

This implies that things where off track following the launch of 5.5, and this all part of a big effort to get them back on track. But we can't be 100% sure on the thinking behind all of this.

 

[wicked cool]

For some on the list I can’t tell if they are missed or not. They boiler sports we get really get almost zero from what they contribute
I still say 5e best adventure was an improved Ravenloft/strahd and it’s the one adventure I’m saving if I only have moments to grab 1. Some f the other better adventures are also reskins of classics
I think Matt Mercer had a bigger impact on the brand than others (for me). My opinion he brought tortles/firbolgs etc to the main stream plus Sven from Larian ignited my imagination when it came to 3d fights.

 

[KYRON45]

I don’t even know the names of the people who run the company I work for.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Some churn is normal. Who's the continuity at this point though?

 

[Gecko85]

Hopefully the new hires will make a push toward adventure paths that are fully fleshed out, as opposed to what we’ve been getting that require nearly as much DM prep time as just starting from scratch.