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Linden Lab arrivals and departures
The lineup of staff at Second Life virtual environment developer/operator, Linden Lab changes on a month by month basis. There's been a bit of motion since the last high-profile hire. Judy Wade, formerly Entrepreneur-in-residence at Kapor Enterprises Inc, has been hired as the vice president of Strategy and Emerging Business. That's the same Kapor as Mitch Kapor who has a seat on the board of directors as the Lab. Eric Argel, formerly director of Information Architecture at Organic Inc San Francisco, is now director of Information Architecture at Linden Lab. That's the same Organic Inc where newly minted Linden Lab CEO, Mark Kingdon came from.
Linden Lab's new Organic enterprise marketer
One of the latest additions to the Linden Lab team is Amanda van Nuys, now the director of Enterprise Marketing at Linden Lab. I don't think there's any prizes for guessing that van Nuys was hired by Mark Kingdon, the Lab's new CEO, as she spent five and a half years as vice-president of Corporate Marketing at Kingdon's old haunt at Organic Inc. 'I'm leading the marketing charge when it comes to how companies can use virtual world technologies -- powered by the Second Life Grid -- to communicate, collaborate, and learn,' said van Nuys, 'Needless to say, the possibilities are endless and the timing is perfect. With the current economic downturn, companies are going to be searching for ways to reduce costs (particularly travel), increase innovation, and conduct business in more eco-friendly ways.' Opinion is divided at the moment on whether the economic downturn pushes enterprises towards or away from virtual worlds. It might be another six months before we really start to see an indication of which. Nevertheless with the Enterprise Marketing team continuing to grow at the Lab, it doesn't seem like a stretch that Kingdon would poach someone with a skillset and record that he knows well. Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.
Linden Lab lands Kingdon: new CEO
In the last couple of years, Linden Lab has grown from around 50 people to (we are told) around 250 people. It is a growth stage of companies that most do not survive, as usually they do something lethally boneheaded in the process. Another stage that many companies do not survive is their first change of CEO. It is a massive change for the company's table of organization, reporting chains and corporate culture. The first CEO change generally sees a large staff turnover. That's what usually happens, anyway. While we're not predicting sudden death for Linden Lab, they're getting their first new CEO today.
