Yves Guillemot has announced that Ubisoft will soon have a ‘Creative Houses’ structure moving forward.
In the announcement, the first Creative House will be a new subsidiary of Ubisoft, with Charlie Guillemot and Christophe Derennes appointed as Co-CEOs.
The full email reads,
“Hello everyone,
I’m writing to you from the Montreal studio to officially announce the creation of the new subsidiary that has been discussed over the past few weeks.
It felt important to me to be close to the teams and talents who contributed to the extraordinary rise of the incredible brands Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six, and who are at the heart of this new structure.
This subsidiary is part of Ubisoft’s broader reorganization, which we will structure into Creative Houses. It is the first in a new organizational ecosystem.
I wanted a complementary duo at the head of this subsidiary, one that can ensure continuity at Ubisoft and embodies collaboration between generations.
With that in mind, I’m pleased to announce that Christophe Derennes and Charlie Guillemot will be the Co-CEOs of this first Creative House. Christophe is well-known to all of you for his extensive experience, his hands-on leadership, his role in developing the Montreal studio, and his impact on the games created there. Charlie brings entrepreneurial spirit, a deep understanding of innovation dynamics, a passion for games that promises to help put players and their expectations at the heart of our approach, and, of course, the family continuity he represents.
Their mission will be to make these three brands global entertainment benchmarks across all platforms.
This is a complementary co-leadership designed to reinforce focus and agility:
Charlie will be responsible for the three brands, meaning their game content, their direction and development as brands, their marketing, and their commercial performance.
The headquarters of the new entity will be based in France, with Charlie managing the relationship between France and Canada.
You can read more directly from Christophe and Charlie here.
I am very proud and moved by this key milestone in Ubisoft’s history, just as we approach the company’s 40th anniversary. It marks the beginning of a new future that reconnects with what makes Ubisoft a truly unique company, thanks to all of you.
In terms of our collaboration with Tencent on the subsidiary, it will take the form of the one we can have with top-notch consultants. They have just announced the creation of a dedicated team for this mission. Christophe, Charlie, and their teams will benefit from Tencent’s guidance and expertise but will remain fully autonomous to act on it or not.
The Creative Houses structure is one of the major outcomes of the Transformation Committee’s work. The pace is fast, and they are on track to meet their 100-day goal by the end of October.
The objectives of reorganizing into Creative Houses are ambitious: to give more autonomy to teams, increase accountability, so that you can focus fully on creating outstanding games. Games that we care about, that will shape our future, and that make us proud.
Our goal is to create coherent Creative Houses that each reflect the different types of gaming experiences within them. Our portfolio is diverse and vast, and the Creative Houses will help give it new meaning and human scale. By becoming closer to players, the Creative Houses will allow us to focus more on our games and on offering invigorating challenges for everyone. These Creative Houses will be autonomous and fully accountable for their commercial and business objectives.
We will be able to share more details about this new structure by the end of September.
At the same time, to support the creation and proper functioning of these Creative Houses, six task forces have been set up: governance, performance management, core partner services, workforce planning, HR & implementation, and branding strategy. Each task force will seek input from teams and involve some of you more deeply in the discussions.
These developments represent a strong acceleration in our transformation, and, in the coming months, will allow us to make these changes concrete and tangible. In the meantime, here are answers to some of the questions you’ve already asked, and I encourage you to share more as you have them.
Tomorrow afternoon, Christophe, Charlie, and I will join the Montreal teams for a simple and informal gathering to celebrate the introduction of this entity, the first step in our renewed youth.
Thank you all, and I wish you a wonderful summer.
Yves.”
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Tom Henderson is Insider Gaming's Co-Founder and Editor-In-Chief. When he's not running one of the industry's leading independent video game websites, he's probably playing an FPS like Call of Duty,…
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