Turbine, Inc. announced today that it has appointed three new executives to its management team: Craig Alexander as Vice President of Product Development, Jerome Lalin as Vice President of Marketing and T.J. Marchetti as Vice President of Community and Social Media. All three executives will play an active role in supporting the fast-growing premier publisher of online games including The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar.
"The successful launch of The Lord of the Rings Online has enabled us to invest in new resources to take Turbine to the next level," said Jeffrey Anderson, president and CEO of Turbine, Inc. "We're thrilled to have three skilled professionals with proven track records to further strengthen Turbine's foundation for future growth."
As Turbine's new VP of Product Development, Craig will be planning and directing the development and production of all of the company's products including The Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons & Dragons Online, Asheron's Call, and all future projects. Craig brings over twenty years of engineering and studio general management experience to Turbine. Most recently, Craig held the position of Vice President and General Manager of Z-Axis, an Activision studio. In this role, Craig managed the development of multiple console titles, including the 2006 X-Men game. Previously, Craig was Vice President and Executive Producer for Electronic Arts Partners, managing a portfolio of externally developed PC and console titles ranging from licensed movie games to new intellectual property, and Vice President of Online for Electronic Arts' Westwood Studios in Las Vegas managing EA's MMORPG Earth & Beyond. Prior to Electronic Arts, Craig was General Manager for Sierra Online's original development studio near Yosemite National Park, shipping numerous titles and overseeing Sierra's entry into the MMORPG segment.
Turbine's new VP of Marketing, Jerome Lalin, has over 15 years of executive marketing and management experience with multi-media businesses in start-up, turnaround and high-growth situations. Prior to joining Turbine, Jerome was a Vice President at Houghton Mifflin Company where he was in charge of enterprise-wide optimization plans, digital publishing, marketing and development of the K-12 education testing division. As a VP of Marketing for Vivendi Games in Europe and Sr. VP and General Manager for Vivendi Games in the US, he has published, marketed and distributed over 400 games titles including brands like Sierra, Blizzard, Knowledge Adventure and Davidson in more than 10 countries. His proven track record of successes include games, education and reference titles like Warcraft, Diablo, Half-life, Jump Start series, Fisher Price series, Hallmark Card Studios, and Print Artist series.
In his new role as VP of Community and Social Media, T.J. Marchetti will lead several cross-platform teams focused on empowering Turbine's community members with the information, features and functionality for a world-class online experience. Prior to joining Turbine, T.J. built successful online communities for several premier Internet brands. He founded eHarmony's product development team and as Vice President of the Singles Service guided the online matchmaking service to record revenue and unit growth performance. Previously, he introduced a pay-for-performance business model that led IAC's Citysearch to profitability. T.J. also built the Small Business team at Yahoo! by establishing programs designed to create high-value affinity groups.