A new report from The Verge reveals Xbox’s current marketing chief Jerret West will be leaving on June 30. Afterwards, he’ll be working at Roblox as its chief marketing officer and marketing expansion head.
The outlet obtained a memo revealing the changes to hit the marketing departments after West’s exit. Per Xbox head Phil Spencer in that memo, there’ll be an “expanded” game marketing team led by integrated marketing VP Kirsten Ward.
Currently, West leads marketing strategy for Xbox games, hardware, and Game Pass. He previously worked at the studio from 2003-2011, and after a seven-year Netflix stint, returned in 2019 to lead marketing for the Xbox Series X|S.
His leave comes a few months after the exit of corporate VP Kareem Choudhry in early April. Like West, Choudhry had a sizable tenure, and his leave also resulted in further streamlining of Xbox’s already streamlined team structure.
Both of those, meanwhile, follow on from several key Xbox departures in late 2023 and early 2024 such as Blizzard Entertainment’s Mike Ybarra, Bethesda’s Pete Hines, and Activision Blizzard’s Bobby Kotick.
Once West is gone, his old teams will be placed “closer to the businesses they support,” said Spencer. Games marketing will fall under Matt Booty’s content and studios team, while hardware marketing goes to the platform/hardware team run by Sarah Bond.
Speaking to West’s jump to Roblox, Spencer called it an “important [Xbox] partner” in the memo. He further noted West’s accomplishments that helped expand the Xbox brand and products like Game Pass.
“On behalf of Team Xbox, I’d like to thank Jerret for everything he accomplished,” he wrote. “We look forward to working with Jerret and the Roblox team to connect more people around the world through the power of play.”