Xbox's 2024 is not calm.

At the "Xbox Games Showcase 2024" earlier this month, Activision, Bethesda, Blizzard, Xbox Game Studios, and Xbox partners showcased a plethora of highly anticipated games like Call of Duty, and a new digital host to players worldwide, hoping to ignite consumer enthusiasm amid the industry-wide slump in consumption.

But with it came another personnel change at the top of Microsoft.

It has been reported that Microsoft is reorganising its marketing department. At the end of this month, Xbox Chief Marketing Officer Jerret West will leave Microsoft to join Roblox as the new Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Marketing.

Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer confirmed this move in an internal memo, revealing that Jerret West will leave on June 30.

Jerret West has served Xbox twice. In 2003, he joined Xbox as a Senior Global Product Manager, later advancing to Director of Marketing, responsible for the marketing strategy of Xbox games, hardware, and Game Pass, before leaving Xbox in 2011. He then served as Vice President and Head of Marketing for the Asia-Pacific region at Netflix for seven years. In December 2019, Jerret West returned to Microsoft as Xbox Chief Marketing Officer and was responsible for the marketing of the Xbox Series X|S consoles the following year.

Jerret West's departure comes amid Xbox marketing department's reorganisation. Following his departure, Microsoft will make adjustments to its gaming department:

• The expanded "Xbox Central Gaming Marketing Team" (including the Integrated Marketing Team and the Programming and Events Team) will be led by Kirsten Ward, Vice President of Xbox Integrated Marketing, reporting directly to Phil Spencer.
• Xbox Marketing will be integrated into the Xbox team, reporting to Xbox President Sarah Bond.
• The Bethesda Publishing Marketing Team and the 1P Games Marketing Team (including Xbox Game Studios and Mojang) will move to the Xbox Game Content and Studios Department, reporting to President Matt Booty.
• The Xbox International Marketing Team and the Bethesda International Marketing Team will be integrated into the Microsoft Consumer Sales Department, reporting to Chief Consumer Sales Officer Ami Silverman.

Phil Spencer stated in the memo, "In the future, the gaming leadership team and I have decided to place marketing closer to the business they support."

Regarding Jerret West's move to Roblox, Phil Spencer called Roblox an "important partner of Xbox" in the memo and acknowledged Jerret West's achievements in promoting the Xbox brand and products such as Game Pass.

This marketing department restructuring comes eight months after the last major leadership changes at Xbox. In October last year, Microsoft promoted Sarah Bond to President of Xbox, responsible for all aspects of the Xbox platform and hardware. Matt Booty was also promoted to President of Game Content and Studios, overseeing the operations of Bethesda and ZeniMax studios.

In April this year, Vice President of Xbox Emerging Technologies Kareem Choudhry also left Microsoft, and his former team moved to the Xbox Hardware Department. Following his departure, Microsoft established the Xbox Experiences and Platform Team, dedicated to improving the experience on Windows and Xbox consoles.

Subsequently, several senior staff from various Xbox studios have left, including Blizzard Entertainment's Mike Ybarra, Bethesda Publishing head Pete Hines, and Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick. To cut costs, Microsoft also closed several game studios in May, including Arkane Austin, and consolidated teams.

Below is the full text of the marketing memo:

I have some news to share with all of you: Jerret West, who has served as the Chief Marketing Officer of Xbox for four and a half years, will be leaving Microsoft to join Roblox as their new CMO and Head of Market Expansion. His last day will be June 30th.

On behalf of Team Xbox, I’d like to thank Jerret for everything he accomplished. During his time here, Jerret was instrumental in launching and growing communities like our Xbox social universe to 120M followers strong, and product expansion like Game Pass which is now available in more than 80 countries worldwide. He oversaw the creation and delivery of global marketing campaigns for numerous games, platforms (console, PC, cloud) and brand moments such as this year’s momentous Xbox Games Showcase. Roblox is an important partner for Xbox, and we look forward to working with Jerret and the Roblox team to connect more people around the world through the power of play.

As a team we are committed to growing the strong marketing capability in Gaming. Going forward, the Gaming Leadership Team and I have decided to place marketing closer to the businesses they support. Games marketing will sit inside of Studios, Xbox marketing will sit inside the Xbox team, international marketing will sit inside of the Consumer Sales Org, and our centralized marketing team will report to me. The following organizational changes will be effective on July 1st:

The Integrated Marketing team led by Kirsten Ward and the Programming and Events team led by Tina Summerford will come together as an expanded Central Gaming Marketing team under Kirsten, who will report to me as a member of the Gaming Executive Leadership Team. Chief of staff Pav Bhardwaj and executive assistant Kim Nold will report to Kirsten.

The Bethesda Publishing Marketing team, led by Erin Losi, will move to Game Content and Studios, reporting to Matt Booty.

The 1P Games Marketing Team including Xbox Game Studios and Mojang, led by Aaron Greenberg, will also move to Game Content and Studios, reporting to Matt.

The Xbox Marketing team, led by Chris Lee, will move to the Xbox Org, reporting to Sarah Bond.

The International Marketing team, led by Jim McMullin and Florian Liewer, will move to the Consumer Sales Org, reporting to Ami Silverman.

The Bethesda International Marketing team, led by Adam Carter, will also move to the Consumer Sales Org. Adam will be taking on a new role leading Business Operations at Bethesda, reporting to Jill Braff. The Consumer Sales Org will work on backfilling his role and share more at a later date.

We’re fortunate to have a deep bench of talent and experience, and I’m excited to see how our marketing will evolve under their leadership.