PAWTUCKET – Cynthia Williams, president of Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro Gaming, will step down, Hasbro Inc. has announced.
Williams will resign from both her roles effective April 26, according to the company’s SEC filing on April 15. The company is seeking her replacement both externally and internally.
Why Williams is resigning was not explained in the SEC filing. Hasbro spokesperson Abby Hobes said the company is declining to comment.
"We’re excited for Cynthia to take the next step in her career and grateful for the contributions she has made in her more than two years at Wizards and Hasbro," Hobes said. "We have started the search for our next president of Wizards of the Coast and hope to have a successor in place soon."
Williams replaced Chris Cocks as president of Wizards of the Coast when Cocks became Hasbro president in 2022.
As president of Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro Gaming, Williams led strategy and drove growth for the world’s leading portfolio of games, including Magic: The Gathering, Monopoly, Scrabble and Dungeons & Dragons. The team is focused on engaging new and existing players by offering both physical and digital experiences of the intellectual properties, including digital apps and games built within the team or by licensing.
On March 29, Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast invested nearly $1 billion into their shared gaming initiatives in the hope of building off the success of Larian Studios’ role-playing video game “Baldur’s Gate 3” and brands Dungeons & Dragons and Monopoly.
It was unclear how much money the studios each received. Eugene Evans, Wizards of the Coast senior vice president of digital strategy and licensing, told the video game newsletter Game File that Hasbro has about 40 games in development, according to the report. Projects include sci-fi role-playing game “Exodus” from Archetype Entertainment, a new G.I. Joe project from Atomic Arcade, and an untitled Dungeons & Dragons title from Invoke Studios.
Williams departure follows a recent shakeup of the company’s board of directors.
On March 21, Frank Gibeau, president of Zynga Inc.; Darin Harris, CEO of Jack in the Box Inc.; and Owen Mahoney, former CEO of Nexon Co., were each appointed to the company’s board of directors. On March 25, Tracy Leinbach, Linda Zecher Higgins and Michael Burns each retired from the board, making the panel consist of 11 members.
In April 2022, Hasbro added two members to expand its board to 13, with plans to shrink to 11 members by 2024.
It was also two years ago that Hasbro management fended off a proxy battle by activist investor Alta Fox Capital Management LLC to take three seats on the board, a shakeup that might have led to a spinoff of its lucrative Wizards of the Coast division. None of Alta Fox’s nominees garnered enough votes from shareholders.
In addition to the board changes announced in March, Hasbro said then Alan Hassenfeld was stepping down as emeritus chairman following the shareholder meeting. He will continue to help guide the company’s charitable efforts, in addition to his many other philanthropic pursuits.
On March 13, Hasbro posted a loss of $1.49 billion in what the company called a “challenging” 2023. Revenue for the year totaled $5 billion.
Hasbro will report its first quarter earnings on April 26.
