GameStop’s board of directors is about to see an enormous personnel shift as eight members, including former Nintendo President Reggie Fils-Aimé, are expected to retire from their positions at the 2021 annual meeting in June. Among those stepping away are Fils-Aimé, Lizabeth Dunn, Paul Evans, Raul J. Fernandez, William Simon, James K. Symancyk, Carrie W. Teffner, and Kathy P. Vrabeck. This news comes by way of an SEC filing.
Fils-Aimé joined the board last year in April shortly after retiring as President of Nintendo America in 2019. His leaving the GameStop board of directors will comes just over one year later. Axios also notes that the board is losing Kathy Vrabeck, a former Activision exec, which leaves the board with less expertise from the games industry.
The SEC filing warns that operations may be disrupted by the big turnover and have “material adverse effect.”
“Turnover among our Board may disrupt our operations, our strategic focus or our ability to drive stockholder value. If we fail to attract and retain new skilled personnel for our Board, our business and growth prospects could disrupt our operations and have a material adverse effect on our operations and business.”
The board will continue to be led by Chewy co-founder Ryan Cohen, who is making big pushes forward in how GameStop can reshape itself, including shifting more heavily into digital sales. As part of the future planning, Cohen is chairing a “strategic planning and capital allocation committee,” which none of the eight departing members of the board are on.
GameStop recently became the center of a campaign (mostly led by Redditors) that saw its stock prices artificially driven up in an attempt to cause hedge funds to lose money on shorts and buybacks. It’s important to not that the shifting stock valuation does not reflect the performance of the company.
Cohen’s push for changes is already seeing some fruits, however. Some have noted GameStop’s shift to selling more high-end PC hardware. While the PC inventory isn’t yet available, the website and physical ad mailers are already being set up to support sales of “PC gaming, computers, monitors, game tables, mobile gaming, and gaming TVs to name only a few,” including RTX 3000 graphics cards, motherboards, power supplies, and PC desktop cases.
GameStop CFO Jim Bell recently resigned as well, and the company is undergoing the search for a replacement.
