GameStop Appoints Amazon Veterans As New CEO, CFO Soon After Ryan Cohen Name Chairman

Video game retailer GameStop has appointed a new chief executive and chief financial officer. Both the top executives are Amazon veterans. While Matt Furlong has been appointed as chief executive, Mike Recupero will work as chief financial officer. The announcement comes hours after Chewy co-founder Ryan Cohen was voted the chairman of the board of GameStop. Cohen has asked shareholders to ‘buckle up’. Meanwhile, the company said that Furlong would lead the company from June 21. Furlong has joined the company after spending almost a decade with the e-commerce giant. Recupero will start working with the video game retailer on July 12. Recupero spent 17 years with Amazon announcing his resignation. The names of top executives of the company have been announced at a time when GameStop has become one of the most recognizable names among meme stocks. It must be noted that GameStop has been working hard to pull itself into the digital sales era.

Furlong was the one responsible for overseeing the Australia business of Amazon and was also looking after the responsibility of the e-commerce company’s North America consumer business as a technical advisor. Earlier in April, the Texas-based retailer had announced that current CEO George Sherman would step down from the post by the end of July. The announcement was part of the larger shake-up to reverse the decline in sales for almost a year and also to accelerate its push into e-commerce. The election of Ryan Cohen as the chairman of the company is also part of the shake-up. Cohen has been the largest shareholder of GameStop. For those who are unaware, GameStop is the second meme stock to the market by surprise. But it posted a quarterly loss of USD 66.8 million.

The news about Cohen associating with the company as the chairman stoked enthusiasm among traders. This pushed the stocks of the company to all-time highs. GameStop has appointed some other executives who have earlier worked with Amazon. It recently hired Jenna Owens as the chief operating officer. Apart from working with Amazon, Owens was associated as an executive with Google too. It also brought Matt Francis as the chief technology officer of the company. This is the first time when GameStop has hired someone for this position. Also, Elliott Wilke joined the company as chief growth officer. Meanwhile, GameStop has received a request for documents from the Securities and Exchange Commission.