Roblox Hires VP of Developer Relations
Roblox announced the hiring of Grace Francisco as Vice President of Developer Relations, overseeing Roblox’s rapidly growing community of 1.7 million developers. In this central role, Francisco will lead developer and educational programs, engaging young creators across multiple platforms and helping elevate them throughout the various stages of the development process.
Francisco believes “the more diverse the developers, the more diverse the experiences become.”
Francisco will leverage Roblox young audience and use that as an opportunity to show kids from all walks of life how Roblox can act as a gateway into programming and game development at a young age.
Roblox currently powers over 48MM monthly active players in a world with over 29MM games created.
A seasoned developer relations leader with more than 12 years of experience, she has co-authored three patents and led worldwide developer initiatives at Microsoft, Intuit, and Atlassian. Prior to joining Roblox, she established Atlassian’s Global Developer Relations organization to nurture and expand its growing developer community. She is also a celebrated diversity advocate, establishing and driving diversity programs, including mentoring rings, at Microsoft and Atlassian.
Rovio Ups Hämäläinen
Simo Hämäläinen has been named senior vice-president, brand licensing for Rovio Entertainment, as part of a global strategy aimed at strengthening the Angry Birds brand for the future.
Hämäläinen has been with Rovio for more than four years and was the vice-president of marketing and promotions before taking over as the head of all licensing operations. He has a wealth of experience in working with big consumer brands. Prior to joining Rovio he held several sales and marketing roles at Heineken over a period of seven years, working with such brands as Heineken, Sol, Fosters, and Pepsi.