GameStop Corp said on Tuesday its chief customer officer Frank Hamlin will resign from the company on March 31, the latest sign of a broader overhaul at the video game retailer driven by its top shareholder, Chewy.com co-founder Ryan Cohen.
This is the second executive departure at GameStop since it tapped Cohen to spearhead a transition to e-commerce for the mall-based retailer.
Hopes that shift could revive results helped fueled a massive rally in GameStop's shares in January although the social-media propelled surge is widely seen as having become unhinged from fundamentals.
Hamlin, who had previously served as the company's chief marketing officer, had been in his current position since June 2019. As chief customer officer, he had been in charge of marketing, customer loyalty and GameStop's "omnichannel business," according to the company's website.
GameStop last month also said Chief Financial Officer Jim Bell would step down.
Since Cohen joined GameStop's board, the 35-year-old entrepreneur has been obsessing about customer service, contacting customers late into the night to solicit feedback, pushing to upgrade the company's website.
Cohen also brought on board Kelli Durkin, who spearheaded initiatives at Chewy that included personal written notes to customers, as senior vice president of customer care.
Cohen hopes to transform the brick-and-mortar retailer into an e-commerce firm that can take on big-box retailers such as Target Corp and Walmart Inc and technology firms such as Microsoft Corp and Sony Corp.
MEME STOCK
GameStop was the main beneficiary of a surge driven by a pack of social media-centric amateur traders that cost some hedge fund short-sellers billions.
Since labelled a "meme stock", the company's shares soared as much as 2500% from the start of January and are still up ten-fold despite trimming gains.
Investors are closely watching its fourth quarter results expected today, where GameStop is expected to return to a sales growth after many quarters of decline.
(Reporting by Eva Mathews and Munsif Vengattil in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva and Christian Plumb)
