The CEO of games service giant Keywords, Andrew Day, is stepping down.
The company announced that Day will be retiring with immediate effect from both his role as chief exec and director of the board. This follows the CEO taking a temporary leave of absence in March of this year due to health reasons, with Day bringing forward his retirement plans.
"I am deeply proud of the business that we have built together, which over my 12 years as CEO has grown from a privately held company with a single localisation and testing studio in Dublin employing 50 people, to a publicly traded global technical and creative services group with more than 9,000 people in 69 studios in 22 countries working passionately with our video games publisher and developer clients to create, adapt and support so many of the world’s leading games," Day said.
“It has been a huge honour to lead the wonderful Keywordians around the world. Whilst my recent health scare has brought about a reassessment of my priorities and brought forward a retirement that I was otherwise looking forward to in the coming few years, I am pleased to be leaving the Group in such a strong position to continue to deliver on its proven strategy.”
Chair of the board, Ross Graham, added: “Over the 12 years since taking over the reins from the founders in 2009, Andrew has led the building of Keywords into the ‘go-to’ global video games services platform it is today.
“It is a tribute to his leadership that he leaves the Group in great shape with a strong and broad leadership team that is well equipped to both drive the company’s strategy forward and enhance its operational performance.
“On behalf of the Board, I would like to thank him for his incredible commitment and contribution to the Group over the last 12 years.
“Under Jon’s and Sonia’s direction, the Group has continued to perform strongly whilst also continuing to add scale and reach through the recent acquisitions of the high quality businesses, Tantalus Media and Climax Studios.
“The Group is well placed, with a leading position in the buoyant video games market and a strong balance sheet, to continue to build upon its strong platform both organically and through selective acquisitions from a healthy pipeline of opportunities.”
