SNK names Kenji Matsubara, former SEGA President, as Chief Executive Officer
Japanese video game and software company SNK last week announced the appointment of Kenji Matsubara as Chief Executive Officer. Matsubara has served many Japanese companies in various executive roles before joining SNK as CEO, effective from August 1st, 2021.
Welcoming Kenji Matsubara to his new role, SNK mentioned Matsubara's wealthy experience in the gaming industry, his widespread experience in game software development, sales and marketing. With Matsubara's engagement as SNK's CEO, the company aims at exponential future growth, amplification of its corporate value while going into a new phase of growth, development and leadership.
SNK is known for its pioneer work on the popular Metal Slug and Samurai Showdown franchises. The recent appointment follows the buying of a controlling SNK share by the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed Bin Salman, through his 'MiSK' charity. The $216.5 fund injection into SNK will buy the crown prince a 33.3% stake in the company.
Before joining SNK, Matsubara worked at SEGA, Japan and served varied roles including, COO, CPO and lastly as President. Prior to SEGA, he served as CEO and President at Zynga, Japan
With over 4 decades of experience, Matsubara, a veteran has held a number of leadership roles and is experienced in engineering, academics and gaming. He has worked for and with various companies including SEGA Games, Zynga Japan, Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association, Tecmo Koei Holdings, Oracle Japan and Hitachi. Matsubara also has a laudable academic experience and has worked at universities as Professor and Guest Professor including Keio University, Meiji University School of Interdisciplinary Mathematical Sciences and University of Tokyo.
Matsubara completed his Bachelor's in Engineering and Master's in Information Engineering from University of Tokyo. He further went for Master's and finished his Master's in Business Administration from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.