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Jagex expands executive team with three new appointments

Executive appointments refocus developer on extending publishing and production operations

Jagex has announced three major leadership appointments ahead of RuneScape's launch onto mobile.

John Burns, formerly of NCSoft, Trion, and EA has been appointed as senior vice president of publishing. Cassia Curran joins as head of business development after five years with NetEase in China, and Neil McClarty, previously product developer at Jagex, has been appointed vice president of product management.

"Jagex is moving forward with bold growth plans," said CEO Phil Mansell.

"We are bolstering our portfolio with franchise extensions, including RuneScape and Old School on mobile, we have new franchise titles in production for both the Western and Eastern markets, and continue to explore external studio and product investment opportunities to complement Jagex's long-held expertise in running living game worlds."

Burns joins the company with some 30 years experience in online game publishing. Most recently he was senior VP of publishing at NCSoft where he led the Seoul-based company's Western publishing operations.

"Jagex is an industry leader in live games, recognised for the incredible rise of RuneScape, a passion for its players and its commitment to innovate," commented Burns.

"I am looking forward to being part of the Jagex team and helping further build on the historical success and accelerate the company.''

Having been promoted from within, McClarty's newfound responsibility at Jagex is leading the strategic growth of the company's portfolio of live games.

With a decade of experience at the studio, McClarty has delivered multi-year membership growth for RuneScape and helped facilitate record performance for Jagex. He has also led multiple divisions across business, development, marketing and production management.

"This year, the RuneScape franchise hit its highest membership reach for five years and our evergreen performance enables us to build out our product roadmap across PC and soon on mobile," said McClarty.

"We have the best in the business at running games-as-a-service giving life to deep and engaging living game worlds, and we will capitalise on that expertise to take both the franchise and new titles to multiple formats and markets."

Curran has joined Jagex as head of business development after five years at NetEase in Hangzhou where she was international business development manager. During her time there Curran brought UK-developed mobile titles to the Chinese market, including 22cans' The Trail.

In her new role, Curran is leading Jagex's studio outreach while seeking investment and partnership opportunities.

"With an enviable performance record in recent years driven by its success in Western territories, coupled with an open door to the Chinese market through its Shanghai-headquartered parent, Fu Kong Interactive, Jagex is perfectly placed to talk investment and partnership opportunities with studios," she said.

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Ivy Taylor

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Ivy joined GamesIndustry.biz in 2017 having previously worked as a regional journalist, and a political campaigns manager before that. They are also one of the UK's foremost Sonic the Hedgehog apologists.