Big changes to your GamesIndustry.biz team
Two new faces join the team as we bid farewell to Matt Handrahan
The GamesIndustry.biz editorial team is changing as we say farewell to an old friend and welcome some new ones.
The big, sad news is that today marks the end of Matt Handrahan's tenure as editor-in-chief of GamesIndustry.biz as he leaves for a new role at PlayStation.
Matt has been our website leader for the past four years and has been a part of the team for a decade. Since taking the EIC role, the GamesIndustry.biz audience has grown by 400%, and he leaves us in a very strong position.
Fortunately, we have some excellent journalists more than capable of stepping into Matt's formidable shoes. And I am delighted to reveal our new editor-in-chief is our very own James Batchelor. James has been our UK editor for four years, and before that was editor of Develop Magazine. He's also held senior writing roles at MCV and InStock in a business journalism career that has spanned 15 years. James reports to the head of Games B2B, Christopher Dring.
Supporting James closely is Brendan Sinclair, who has been promoted from his role of US Editor to Managing Editor. Brendan has more than two decades of experience in journalism, and alongside nine years at GamesIndustry.biz, spent seven years as senior news editor at GameSpot. He will work closely with James in developing the team and ensuring the website maintains its high quality reporting.
We can also announce two brand new hires to the GamesIndustry.biz team.
Joining us this week is our new staff writer Jeffrey Rousseau. Based in Florida, Jeffrey is an established freelance writer who has been published by leading US games publications on subjects such as the intersectionality of games and media. He's already made his presence felt in the few short days since he joined us and we're excited to add him to the team.
Next month Danielle Partis is joining us as News Editor. Danielle is an award-winning business journalist who began her career running the website InfluencerUpdate.biz before becoming editor of PocketGamer.biz, both at Steel Media. She joins us on April 12th as we look to go deeper on the big news stories dominating the industry.
Meanwhile, our new website section GamesIndustry.biz Academy has just celebrated its first year and has exceeded all expectations under the leadership of our Academy writer Marie Dealessandri. We have big plans to expand the brand further later in the year.
Indeed, this is a big year for GamesIndustry.biz. Next month we are debuting our new event -- GI Live: Online -- a business show for indie game developers that you should expect to see take place at PAX and EGX once those events return.
This Spring we will be launching a new jobs board for games recruiters around the world. And in July, you can look forward to our first US Best Places To Work Awards.
A subscription service for GamesIndustry.biz readers will also be going live around the same time (but don't worry, the website and all its contents will remain free). And although it's hard to predict what the end of 2021 will look like for any of us, we have more GI Live events, a series of Academy shows and both the UK and Canada Best Places To Work Awards on the schedule. Plus, we'll be deep into developing an all-new GamesIndustry.biz website.
So farewell and best wishes to Matt. Congratulations to James and Brendan. Welcome Jeffrey and Danielle. And thank all of you for reading. The next 12 months is once again shaping up to be the biggest in our history.