Bobby Kotick has been the chief executive officer (CEO) of Activision Blizzard since May 2011. In February 2008, he also took on the role of Activision Blizzard’s chief operating officer (COO). Since then, his company has grown from a single game company to one that now encompasses many diverse franchises from Call of Duty to Skylanders. Kotick took on this new role to help guide Activision Blizzard’s company culture into the future. He stated that he has a vision of a company where employees are empowered to make decisions that will drive the company’s growth and culture. Kotick’s mission is to create a sustainable foundation for growth over time
- Bobby Kotick Becomes Blizzard Activision CEO
Bobby Kotick was born in New York City in 1964. He earned his B.S. in economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his MBA from California at Berkeley. Before becoming a CEO, Kotick held several high-level executive positions at Microsoft Corp.
- Bobby Kotick’s First Game Company
In 1991, Bobby Kotick co-founded Michael Morhaime’s company, which would become known as Blizzard Entertainment (Blizzard). The company was originally called Silicon & Synapse and had its first title released in 1993 entitled “Warcraft: Orcs & Humans”. In 1996, Blizzard released “Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness”, which later became one of the best-selling games across all platforms of all time. During this period, Blizzard also created other popular games, including “Diablo” (1996), “StarCraft” (1998), “Tribes: Ascend” (2012), and “Overwatch” (2016).
- Facing the Future: Merging With Microsoft
In 1999, Blizzard was acquired by Microsoft. At the time, Kotick was the president of Blizzard Entertainment, but he left this position in 2000 to become the vice president of business development. He served in this position until 2001, when he became the executive vice president of Activision. In 2003, Kotick was promoted to executive vice president and chief operating officer (COO) for Activision Blizzard..
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