Thunderful Group has appointed board member Martin Walfisz to the role of CEO, taking over from acting CEO Anders Maiqvist before September 1.
Walfisz is an industry veteran with experience in the Nordic and European games industries. He founded Swedish game developer Massive Entertainment in 1997, before moving on to focus on other commitments after the studio’s acquisition by Ubisoft in 2008.
In 2016, Walfisz joined Nordisk Film and established a new M&A division, Nordisk Game, with a focus on investing in European games companies. Acting as senior partner and chief strategy officer, he has provided strategic support to companies such as Avalanche Studios, Supermassive Games, and MercurySteam.
“With more than twenty-five years as a successful entrepreneur, executive, strategic advisor and investor within the industry, Martin brings an incredible depth and breadth of knowledge to Thunderful” said Thunderful Chair of the Board Patrick Svensk. ”Martin will leave his role as Board Member in Thunderful to focus his efforts on his new duties as CEO”.
New challenges
“On behalf of the board, I would also like to thank Anders Maiqvist for his great achievements as Acting CEO. Under Anders’ leadership, Thunderful’s distribution segment has restored margins and generated significant cash flows while the games segment has delivered solid profits and market-leading organic growth. I am confident Martin now has a solid platform to further develop the company from, and I wish Anders all the best in his future endeavours.”
”Thunderful is a very exciting company that I have been following since its inception,” said Walfisz. “To be asked to lead the group as CEO is both an honour and a big responsibility. I look forward to working with the talented people of Thunderful to capitalise on, and develop, the business potential, creativity and passion that exists within the group. Thunderful is on an exciting growth journey, and I’m convinced that we’ve only seen the beginning,”
In July, Thunderful appointed industry veteran Jon Rooke to the role of vice president of marketing.
