Vice President, New Initiatives Candy Crush Saga

Craft:
Games Design & Production
Job Description:
Your Role Within Our Kingdom
Candy Crush Saga is looking for a Head of New Initiatives, who will focus on identifying and evaluating opportunities to deliver new exciting experiences to our players with the potential to grow the game. Our Head of New Initiatives will be critical in product development that enables Candy Crush Saga to expand its audience, deepen our player engagement and increase player investment.
Together with your teams, you will own and drive ideas from early exploration, assessment and concepting to production and beyond. You work closely with the team to provide feedback, context and direction.
As the Head of New Initiatives, you take it upon yourself to set your part of the organization up for success and you know what makes a healthy game development unit run like clockwork. This includes making sure the appropriate structures and processes are in place, and continuously evaluating how your organization is set up, its effectiveness and ways-of-working aligned in order to meet our objectives.
This role will report to the Head of Candy and a member of the Candy leadership team. You’ll need to be a strong and senior people and organizational leader with the ability to think strategically but often dive deep into the detail and provide executional direction and goal orientation.
Key Responsibilities
Working with the VP Live Operations and based on the overall Candy Strategy, create, own and drive a 3-year horizon product strategy for New Initiatives
Develop and implement the New Initiatives product strategy and have final say on which features will be move forward into production.
Together with the team, drive initial evaluation and decision-making process on new initiatives, concepting and prototypes as well as offer insight and solutions so that we add the winning ingredients to our games
Play an active part in the creative process, and with support from market and player research, identify new opportunities and build a product roadmap that can grow the game.
Support the game development teams in scoping new features
Lead the game development teams in product development decision-making; when to pivot, when to stop, when to iterate.
Lead the continuous improvement of the product development and design process
Coordinate with all areas cross Candy to ensure that we create a coherent and consistent player experience.
Coordinate with stakeholders across King to ensure that they are in sync with our development plans and product initiatives.
Be a guardian of quality and ensure that the experiences we deliver to our players matches the high-quality game experience we are aiming for.
Ensure a player-centric approach where we bring the best user experience and gameplay to our players.
Ensure product, design, and commercial excellence are combined.
Contribute to Candy’s overall success and growth and drive the New Initiative agenda in the Leadership team
Contribute to and help to shape Candy’s strategy for the product, the business and the organisation
Skills To Create Thrills
A proven track-record of leading cross-functional teams in taking product innovation and development all the way from idea to concept development through to delivery.
Combine senior product development, management excellence and strong commercial awareness.
A passion for creating new, compelling experiences that expand the player base, drive engagement and provides opportunities for monetization
Strong analytical skills and the ability to work with input from various sources to inform and create the future direction of the product
You have a detailed knowledge of the games market and current consumer expectations
An expert in Agile product development methodologies
A humble and positive personality, who leads from the front but also takes people on the journey. Open to failing fast. Leans into issues quickly and actively shares their expertise and learnings with others, acting as a role model.
Experience of operating in a high-paced development and delivery environment
A strategic mindset with the ability to excel in a constant changing work environment and industry
Deep understanding of live game development and operations
Excellent and senior organizational and leadership abilities with experience of managing leaders often cross-functionally
Outstanding communication and people skills
Experience of managing budget
Strategic mindset combined with delivery and operational effectiveness
About King
King is a leading interactive entertainment company for the mobile world, with people all around the world playing one or more of our games, including franchises such as Candy Crush, Farm Heroes, Pet Rescue and Bubble Witch.
We have 249 million monthly active users as of fourth quarter 2019 across web, social and mobile platforms. King was acquired by Activision Blizzard Inc. (Nasdaq ATVI) in February 2016 and operates as an independent unit of the
company.
A Great Saga Needs All Sorts of Heroes
Making games is fun. Especially when you do it with people who share the same idea of what makes a good workplace great. We design games for everyone, no matter where they are or who they are, and we employ all sorts of people from all kinds of backgrounds to bring them to life. Truth is, we simply cannot expect diversity in our players and originality in our games without first nurturing it in our people. A great saga needs all sorts of heroes.
Making the World Playful
Making the World Playful is what inspires us to create new experiences and raise the bar. It’s what makes King a place where we can all dream bigger, continue to add innovation to our games, broadening the portfolio and exploring new territories in mid-core and casual. We take the art and science of gaming to the next level through our curiosity for the unexplored, passion for games, respect for each other and love for our players – and we’re not afraid to have fun along the way. In fact, together with our parent company Activision Blizzard and experts around the world, we believe having fun is good for you. There has never been a better time to join us. We're dreaming bigger and see a world of possibilities ahead. If you share our passion, our values, and our hunger to shape the future, join us in Making the World Playful!
Applications needs to be in English.
Discover King at careers.king.com