The chief compliance officer ofActivision Blizzard, Frances Townsend, is set to step down from her post. After Townsend’s duties end as the CCO, she will join as an adviser to the company’s board and CEO Bobby Kotick. Her tenure as CCO and executive vice president of corporate affairs atActivision Blizzardends after approximately a year and a half in the company. Before her job at Activision, Townsend was a Homeland Security counter-terrorism adviser to the White House under President George W. Bush.
The Activision Blizzard executive has been under pressure after her comments about thesexual harassment legal case against Activision Blizzard. Townsend was protecting the company by calling the allegations “distorted” and “factually incorrect” in an internal document, although later on walked the statements back, stating that comments were made under legal counsel’s guidance. However, she has also been criticized for sharing articles that are insensitive to and dismissive of the case made against Activision Blizzard. One of these occasions was her personal Twitter post sharing an article titled “The Problem With Whistleblowing.”
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Townsend leaves Activision Blizzard at a crucial time for the company.Microsoft has made a bid to buy Activision Blizzardfor nearly $70 billion to better compete with Sony’s expanding game studios. Microsoft is confident that the acquisition, initiated in January of this year, will go through. The purchase is under review by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which is making sure it doesn’t bend any competition legislation, essentially determining whether this would create a monopoly. While the acquisition has been in the works since January, it is expected to last possibly until next summer before it is finalized.
In addition to being another major turning point in the company’s ownership,Activision Blizzard is in the process of announcing important games. Blizzard will close theOverwatchservers soon and re-launch them with the newOverwatch 2early next week, on the 4th. Following theOverwatch 2launch, the Activision side of the company is preparing for the launch of its most important game of the year.Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2beta testing is over, and the game is set to hit the stores on October 28.
The company’s CEO, Bobby Kotick, who hasremained Activision Blizzard’s head executive even after immense pressure, rallied to compliment Townsend in an email that was shared with Bloomberg. In the letter, Kotick said that “Fran did a truly exceptional job - actually four jobs - with continuously increasing responsibilities and the most exemplary work ethic.” Activision Blizzard’s senior vice president of ethics and compliance, Jen Brewer, will fill Townsend’s job with Luci Altman, the company’s senior vice president of corporate governance.
