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Former Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aimé has announced he will be joining GameStop’s Board of Directors.
Speaking on Twitter, Fils-Aimé stated “The gaming industry needs a healthy and vibrant @GameStop. I look forward to being a part of @GameStopCorp Board and helping to make this happen.”
A press release issued by GameStop stated that William Simon, and James Symancyk would also be added to the Board of Directors, while four others retired. Fils-Aimé’s will begin his new duties as part of the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee “effective April 20, 2020”.
GameStop CEO George Sherman had high praise for the new Board members.
“The Board refreshment and governance enhancements announced today represent an important milestone in GameStop’s transformation as we continue to evolve the Company’s business strategy for long-term success. We are pleased to welcome Reggie, Bill and J.K. to the Board. They are each highly qualified and bring significant, relevant experience to our turnaround. We look forward to immediately benefitting from their expertise and perspectives as we navigate the evolving gaming and retail environments, execute on our strategic initiatives and prepare the Company to maximize value-creation associated with the next generation of console launches later this year.”
Since retiring from Nintendo in February 2019, Fils-Aimé has also been a teacher at Cornell University, and joined the New York Video Game Circle’s Board of Directors.
However, some may not be happy Fils-Aimé has joined GameStop, or hope he will bring drastic change. A YouTuber by the name of Camelot331 has been covering accusations of immoral and illegal activities conducted by GameStop employees and corporate staff for over a year.
Across our editorial series covering his work [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] Camelot, alleged former, and alleged existing GameStop staff accused the company of numerous offenses at both store employee, and corporate level.
These included mistreating and defrauding customers, mistreating staff, firing staff under false or dubious pretenses, poor business decisions, and attempting to maximize profit by any means before liquidating the company or senior corporate management leaving after achieving all the profit they could.
It even includes claims that corporate and senior staff did nothing when told of sexual assault by senior store staff against employees under their care.
Based on information Camelot received, along with his own experiences, he felt GameStop would soon enter bankruptcy. He also proposed there was a “three stage plan” by corporate leaders.
This would involve doing whatever it took to increase the stock value of the company in the short-term (including closing stores and firing staff) before liquidating the company or filing for bankruptcy.
True or not, GameStop has struggled to compete with online stores, and has been suffering an ever slipping stock-price.
Will Fils-Aimé be able to change GameStop? What do you think? Sound off in the comments below!
