Game publisherActivision Blizzardhas announced the appointment of veteran Google executive Daniel Alegre as the company’s new President and Chief Operating Officer. Alegre will begin his new role on July 29, 2025, and will oversee Activision Publishing, Blizzard Entertainment, and King Digital Entertainment. He will report directly to Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick.
Alegre will replace current Activision Blizzard COO Coddy Johnson, who will remain with the company but move to the role of special advisor to Kotick. Alegre’s extensive experience in drivingrevenue growthat Google seems to be one of the key factors that made him appealing to Activision Blizzard. In the press release announcing the company’s new COO, Kotick stated: “I was deeply impressed by Daniel’s entrepreneurial drive and broad and deep experience in driving global growth across a variety of businesses in a rapidly changing industry.”
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In the press release, Alegre spoke about his new role and the extensive library of established franchises owned byActivision Blizzard, stating that the company “connects and engages over 400 million people around the world through epic entertainment. I look forward to helping players around the world connect through quality and immersive games.”
Alegre has worked atGooglefor 16 years, first establishing the network of offices for Google Latin America, then overseeing operations and expansion in the Asia-Pacific region. For five years, Alegre moved on to extend and maintain Google’s critical global partnerships and, finally, he led Google’s shopping revenue and retail ecosystem as President of Global Retail and Shopping for nearly two and a half years. Alegre also serves on the Board of Directors for Sleep Number by Select Comfort as a member of the audit and compensation committees.
Alegre’s addition to the executive team comes at a time when the company seems to be facing new financial challenges. A little over a year ago, in February 2019,800 employees of Activision Blizzard were laid offdespite record-setting sales and profits in 2018. The reason given by management was that the success wasn’t enough to maintain such a large employee base long term. Despite social media backlash over the decision, the executives seemed to be proven right when the company’s 2019 earnings report showed a $1 billion drop in revenue, the first dip since 2015.
