Zynga announces a hiring, not a departure: DeNA West’s Clive Downie is its new chief operating officer

Breaking news: Someone’s actually joining Zynga’s executive team instead of leaving it.

Zynga has stolen away DeNA West’s CEO Clive Downie to be its new chief operating officer. The surprise move comes just in time for Zynga’s third-quarter earnings announcement today.

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Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.