Room 8 Group, the prominent co-development firm, has appointed Juanita Draude as its new chief executive officer.
Draude is making the jump over from Monks, where she has served as executive vice president for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa since January 2025. Before that, she spent years in leadership roles across media and marketing, with stints at Publicis, NBCUniversal, and the National Basketball Association.
“Having just spent the last 10 years in advertising, the last two to three, in particular, have been very interesting and quite bumpy, with regard to the acceleration of AI, and I think marketing services is really on the front line of that transformation,” Draude said in an interview with GamesBeat. “So I could see that there was a real opportunity with Room 8 and its size, shape, and range of services, and the way it was put together, to actually be a real leader in this new frontier.”
As Room 8 Group’s new CEO, Draude is filling the shoes of the company’s previous chief executive Anna Kozlova, who announced last month that she would be stepping down from her role at the company. Kozlova had served as a C-suite executive at Room 8 since 2019, joining the company as chief operating officer before transitioning to the chief executive role in 2021.
“Leading this business has been one of the most meaningful experiences of my career to date,” Kozlova wrote in a LinkedIn post announcing her departure from Room 8 Group. “I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve built together: from a 350-person studio based in Kyiv in 2019, navigating significant challenges and growth pains, to becoming a global leader in external development, expanding across the globe, and building an exceptional team along the way.”
With over 1,000 employees across Europe and the Americas, Room 8 Group has grown to become one of the most prominent co-development companies in the gaming industry, working on franchises like Call of Duty, Diablo, and Assassin’s Creed. As triple-A studios have grown more dependent on external development partners to help get their projects across the finish line, Room 8 Group has ridden the wave, offering services ranging from art production to QA and testing.
“We have to really position ourselves and focus on the fact that these aren’t transactional relationships anymore, and they probably haven’t been for quite some time,” Draude said. “That idea of a real partnership, where both parties are sharing the output and the vision, is super analogous to where advertising agencies are — but I also think it’s the future of external internal relationships within the sector.”
Room 8 Group has already leveraged AI technology to increase the efficiency of its work, publishing a report on the impact of AI on game development last December. Draude highlighted the role of external development partners like Room 8 as the front line of companies testing and using these technologies in game development and said that she planned to continue the company’s research in this area, but acknowledged that it would be crucial for Room 8 Group to move at the pace of its partners with regard to AI adoption.
“External developers need to step up and be the experts in innovation and adaptation as part of our core service. We need to be proactive in establishing the right kinds of controls and relationships directly with the tooling providers, and be able to offer that range and be proactive about it with our partners and clients, so that they are the ones who feel in control,” Draude said. “And they will still have all the comfort levels that they need, but we need to be on the front foot, as we’re seeing all the ways it can be applied.”