(Reuters) – GameStop Corp is looking for a new CEO to replace George Sherman as it turns from a brick-and-mortar video game store to an e-commerce company, three people familiar with the case said Monday.
It would be the biggest uproar at GameStop since Ryan Cohen, the co-founder and former CEO of online pet food company Chewy Inc, joined the board in January. The stock is up nearly 4,000% from a year ago, after it became the poster child of retailers betting on so-called “meme” stocks.
GameStop’s board of directors is working with an executive headhunter on the search for the CEO, the sources said, asking for anonymity because the matter is confidential.
Several GameStop board members are involved in the search and have spoken with potential candidates from the games industry, as well as the e-commerce and technology sectors, the sources said.
A GameStop spokesperson declined to comment.
Shares of GameStop fell 12% during afternoon trading on Monday to $ 138.75, bringing the company a market value of approximately $ 10 billion.
The CEO replacement is the latest in a string of changes Cohen has made since joining GameStop. Former Chief Financial Officer Jim Bell and Chief Customer Officer Frank Hamlin are among the senior executives who have left the company in recent weeks.
George Sherman, who has been CEO since April 2019, is internally credited with cutting costs and driving GameStop through the COVID-19 pandemic that led many retailers to bankruptcy.
But Cohen and other GameStop board members consider Sherman’s 25 years of experience working primarily with brick-and-mortar retailers, such as Advance Auto Parts Inc and Home Depot Inc., as less relevant to the digital transformation they’ve started as a technology company.
Cohen, who was named GameStop chairman last week, is trying to make the company the online destination of choice for video game fans, just as Chewy won the animal lovers.
He pushed for a number of hires at GameStop, including Elliott Wilke as Chief Growth Officer, Jenna Owens as Chief Operating Officer, and Matt Francis as Chief Technology Officer. All three previously worked at Amazon.com Inc.
Cohen also brought in people from Chewy, including Andrea Wolfe as vice president of brand development, Neda Pacifico as senior vice president of e-commerce, and Kelli Durkin as senior vice president of customer service.
Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss; Editing by Dan Grebler