Thunderful expands leadership team and appoints Agostino Simonetta as new Thunderful Games boss

Agostino Simonetta joined as Chief Strategy and Investment Officer on July 1, 2021 after seven years at Microsoft, where he headed the Global Partnership Management at the ID@Xbox program. During two decades in the games industry Simonetta has also worked at PlayStation Europe, SEGA Europe and THQ.

In his new role as Chief Games Officer at Thunderful Group and head of Thunderful Games, Simonetta will focus on accelerating the growth of the Games segment’s three divisions: Thunderful Development, Thunderful Publishing and Thunderful Investment.

Appointing Simonetta is a part of a strategy where Thunderful defines areas of responsibility and allocates additional resources to the gaming companies, which will also going forward be run in decentralised fashion. Eddie Beardsmore (VP of Development), Dieter Schoeller (VP of Publishing) and Callum Underwood (VP of Investment) will lead each business division. Today, Thunderful Games employs more than 300 people.

"We want to define our business areas and responsibilities more clearly. It’s strategically sound to strengthen the organisation, and Agostino is the right person to take Thunderful Games to the next level," says Thunderful Group CEO Brjann Sigurgeirsson.

As a part of the restructuring Klaus Lyngeled, former Head of Development, leaves Thunderful Group. Lyngeled, who previously founded successful game developer Zoink Games, has contributed to elevating the games business and to restructuring the company. Lyngeled will be with the company for an additional six months.

"Klaus has a special brand of creativity, and has developed a number of qualitative games and IPs during his years at Zoink Games and Thunderful. I want to thank him for his good work, and I wish him all the best with future projects,” says Thunderful Group CEO Brjann Sigurgeirsson.