Top-Ranked Wall Street Analyst Joins Leading Social Gaming Company
Playdom, a leading social game developer, announced today the appointment of Christa Quarles as chief financial officer (CFO). In her new role, effective immediately, Quarles will be responsible for overseeing the company's fiscal management and forecasting. The former managing director of Thomas Weisel Partners Group will be a key member of Playdom's executive team and participate in overall strategic planning. She will report directly to Chief Executive Officer John Pleasants.
"I'm excited to help Playdom accelerate its already-impressive growth," said Quarles. "Social gaming is a high trajectory industry, and Playdom is uniquely well positioned for long-term success."
At Thomas Weisel Partners Group, Quarles led an effort to develop deeper strategic insight and operational processes across the firm and served as a senior equity research analyst for almost a decade. In 2009, Financial Times ranked Quarles the #1 Internet Software & Services Analyst for earnings estimates; well-known companies she has covered include Google, Yahoo! and Amazon.
Prior to joining Thomas Weisel, Quarles was an assistant vice president at Merrill Lynch, where she worked in the Fixed-Income Research Department analyzing bond portfolios for institutional accounts. Quarles graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Carnegie Mellon with degrees in economics and German. In addition, she holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.
"Christa brings proven business intelligence and financial expertise to Playdom. In particular, she has incredible insight into the formula behind successful consumer Internet companies," said John Pleasants. "We're thrilled to head into 2010 with Christa on our team."
About Playdom
Playdom is committed to bringing people everywhere together through the world's best social games. Playdom is the #1 game developer on MySpace and the #5 game developer on Facebook with popular titles including Sorority Life, Mobsters 1 and 2 and (Lil) Farm Life. Playdom players range in age from thirteen to eighty and come from over 200 countries. To date, over 90 million Playdom games have been installed on leading platforms including MySpace, Facebook, iPhone and Hi5. Playdom is headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., with studios in San Francisco; Seattle, Wash.; Eugene, Ore.; Argentina and South East Asia. For more information about Playdom, please visit www.playdom.com.
Contacts:
OutCast Communications
Rebecca Silliman, 415-392-8282
playdom@outcastpr.com
or
Playdom
Rachel
Thomas, 650-391-8082
rachel@playdom.com