Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment Announces Restructured Sales Organization
(April 28, 2010 – Burbank, CA) – Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment (WBIE) has restructured its sales organization to bring closer alignment to the sales and supply chain teams within the Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group. To lead this new sales organization, Kevin Kebodeaux has been named Senior Vice President, Sales, Americas and Olivier Wolff has been named Senior Vice President, International, Games. These promotions were announced today by Martin Tremblay, President, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.
As Senior Vice President, International, Games, Wolff is responsible for setting and leading commercial strategies that build the WBIE business outside of the Americas. He oversees sales and marketing efforts and works in a consultative role with country management and WBIE staff to maximize sales from all game releases. As a key member of WBIE’s executive management team, Wolff will drive aggressive growth while ensuring a well-orchestrated approach to the business. He dually reports to Martin Tremblay and Jim Wuthrich, President, International, Home Video and Digital. Additionally, Wolff will continue in his current role as Managing Director of Spain, overseeing home video, games and digital.
“As a veteran in the home entertainment business, Olivier brings a unique mix of skills to WBIE’s sales organization,” said Tremblay. “His international experience, packaged goods expertise, as well as his marketing background will be essential in this newly combined role.”
As Senior Vice President, Sales, Americas, Kebodeaux is responsible for all sales operations in the United States, Canada and South America. In his new role, he will develop Pan-American distribution strategies for games that are integrated with WBIE’s sister organization, Warner Home Video; this includes engaging the company’s distribution partners and the ongoing management of those relationships. Kebodeaux will dually report to Martin Tremblay and Mark Horak, President, Warner Home Video, The Americas.
“Kevin’s proven record as a sales executive combined with his focus, energy and management skills make him an ideal person to spearhead our sales efforts in the Americas,” said Tremblay. “This promotion recognizes his many accomplishments and his increasing level of responsibility within the organization.”
Wolff began his career with Warner Bros. in 2000 as Marketing Director. He was promoted to Deputy Managing Director of France in 2004 and then to General Manager of Spain and Portugal in 2005. Most recently, Wolff served as Vice President, Spain and Italy and Managing Director of Spain, where he successfully developed new areas of growth for the Spanish affiliate, such as Blu-ray, digital and games, bringing the company to an undisputed leadership position four years in a row. He is also deeply involved in the creation of a major anti-piracy initiative with the MPAA in Spain, which is expected to lead to an anti-piracy law by this summer.
Prior to Warner Bros., Wolff spent five years in consulting, mainly in Privatisation, Industrial Auditing and Organization, and spent four years at Procter and Gamble developing flagship brands in France and Europe. He has an MBA from HEC Paris and a Master in Technological Management from Ecole Centrale Paris.
Kebodeaux joined WBIE in 2007 as Vice President, Sales, Americas, and since then has made impressive inroads by establishing relationships, building a great team and representing the company’s interests with retail. Prior to joining Warner Bros., he was responsible for Global Sales at LucasArts and before that, Director and Head of U.S. Sales and Channel Development at Nokia. Kebodeaux began his career in the videogame industry at Sega of America during the launch of Dreamcast, managing sales activities in North and South America. He recently received an MBA from Pepperdine University.
Warner Bros. continues to grow its games business through key acquisitions, building internal development capabilities, leveraging its global video distribution infrastructure, and focusing on developing major games franchises such as “Batman,” “F.E.A.R.,” “Mortal Kombat,” “The Lord of the Rings” and “LEGO.”
About Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, a division of Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group, is a premier worldwide publisher, developer, licensor and distributor of entertainment content for the interactive space across all current and future platforms, including console, handheld and PC-based gaming for both internal and third party game titles. # # #