WotC WotC President Cynthia Williams Resigns

Cynthia Williams, who has been president of Wizards of the Coast for the last two years, will be leaving the company at the end of the month, according to an SEC filing dated April 15th. Hasbro is already looking for somebody to step into the role.

Williams worked for Microsoft on the Gaming Ecosystem Commercial Team before joining WotC two years ago, stepping into the role that then-president Chris Cocks vacated when he was promoted to CEO of Hasbro in February 2022.

Item 5.02 Departure of Directors or Certain Officers; Election of Directors; Appointment of Certain Officers; Compensatory Arrangements of Certain Officers.
On April 15, 2024, Cynthia Williams, President of Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro Gaming, informed the Company of her resignation from the Company effective April 26, 2024. The Company is conducting a process to identify her successor, looking at both internal and external candidates.

According to Rascal News, WotC responded with a 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. We wish her the absolute best in her next endeavor. We have started the search for our next President of Wizards of the Coast and hope to have a successor in place soon."

 

[bedir than]

It wasn't brought up during the main remarks (those which are released on the investors pages) but may have come up during the Q&A today

 

[michaeljpastor]

My speculation? It's pretty way out there wacky but here goes. After 2 years, she was fully vested and found another job that she thought was a better fit. Perhaps it was more pay, closer to home, more flexibility, something she would find more challenging or some other reason. So she gave her two week notice like almost every other employee.

Yeah, I know. Crazy talk.

Two years seems short for full vestments, but I only have a handful of personal experience to go by for that impression.

 

[MNblockhead]

Asked ChatGPT what it thought about this.

Shamed by an AI.

 

[michaeljpastor]

Asked ChatGPT what it thought about this.

View attachment 359748
Shamed by an AI.

Sounds like someone is deflecting

 

[Juxtapozbliss]

Teos Abadia had a thoughtful speculation about this in Mastering Dungeons podcast, episode 187 at 19:02 minutes mark. I normally listen to that show on Pocket Casts, but here's a convenient link to it on Youtube:

 

[dbolack]

But I'm thinking of running a D&D campaign under the Golden Dragon Anniversary Edition rules at the end of this year or early next year, so I'm still reading the D&D threads. It would be nice to have an "ignore these users in this thread" feature rather than across the entire forum.

Sorry for a slight derail. "Golden Dragon Anniversary Edition" - Is this a nickname or a product? I've neither seen it before or in a brief bit of googling found a matching reference.

 

[dbolack]

FYI, internet existed during 2e as well. Learn some history. It just was not "broadband", and TSR did not have first run batches of every book messed up like WotC did when 3.0 came out and changed everything about the books. TSR had less "growing pains" in the book printing because they did NOT change 50% of the process/materials for every book like WotC is want to do. Go back and check FidoNet logs and BBSs from the 80s when 1e and 2e were out.

It is worth pointing out that these were usually printing issues, not materials choice issues, particularly with glued spine books. Failures happen. Though some products (from any number of publishers!) are a bit more infamous for it.

 

[dbolack]

Oh, they were pretty clear it was about the anesthetics and feel when reading.

I can buy that. One of the things I very much have disliked about the move to gloss stock for books is the feel of the paper. It triggers the "don't tear the magazine flipping the page" neurons very hard.

 

[dbolack]

Not true. Companies allow you to resign rather than be fired all the time.

Depends wildly on your locale, industry, and workplace toxicity. But yes.

 

[dbolack]

edit: More evidence that I should either read more frequently, or not.