Philip Gladkov, who has been the head of Pixonic since 2011, is leaving the company. Officially, the departure will take place in early 2020. Gladkov is now handing over the case to his successor.
Yesterday, August 26, the company’s employees found out about it from an internal mailing list. In it, Gladkov reports that the decision was not easy emotionally, but notes that he is not worried about the future of Pixonic.
The name of the new CEO also became known from the letter. It will be Georgy Egorov, the current COO of the company. According to Gladkov, Egorov has been taking over duties since the beginning of this year and will officially become CEO in September.
Gladkov has been the head of Pixonic since 2011. With him, the company switched to mobile and launched the PvP action War Robots. The success of the latter made Pixonic one of the highest-grossing gaming companies in Russia.
Top 5 highest-grossing gaming companies in Russia (mobile, revenue from IAP for July 2019, DataMagic)
We asked Gladkov about the reasons for leaving in a short interview.
Alexander Semenov, Senior Editor App2Top.ru : You have been the head of Pixonic since 2011. In fact, he made it the company that we all know. This company now ranks second in Russia in terms of revenue from mobile games. Why, looking back at such successes, do you leave?
Philip GladkovPhilip Gladkov, CEO of Pixonic:
I have been working in the company for 10 years, 7 years as CEO and I feel the strength to repeat.
If you leave the company, then only when it is as stable as possible: the War Robots game performs perfectly, the indicators of the new project inspire, and the team objectively drags. Over the past 6 months, I have handed over the affairs to my successor and will advise him and the team until the spring of 2020, and only then will I finally leave the company.
Is it possible to say that now you are more interested not in being a managing manager, but in being an owner?
Gladkov: There is a desire to do something from scratch, a desire to be an owner and a desire to prove something to yourself.
Do your plans for the future of the company differ from your opinion Mail.Ru Group?
Gladkov: Pixonic has always been an independent company, where investors play the role of more experienced advisors who help to “steer” on sharp turns. So it remains to this day, so our opinions did not differ.
Will the company’s strategy change after you leave, or will Pixonic remain a studio about mobile PvP projects?
Gladkov: Now we are mainly engaged in PvP projects, but, as they say, “leaving is leaving”, so I will be happy to see where the Pixonic team will lead the company in the future. What I’m definitely looking forward to is the launch of our new game next year. I believe that it will be a new hit of the company.
Looking back on ten years of work in the company, can you share a couple of decisions that, as it seems to you, have become key for the future of the company, although initially, at the time of adoption, they might not seem the most obvious.
Gladkov: Everything is simple here: the first thing is to try to enter a new, not yet very monetary, but interesting mobile market. The second is to give way to the PvP project War Robots. At that moment, “giving way” meant cutting all the other projects, so we cut all the casual projects in which we had expertise, and began to develop in a completely new area.
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