I've simply lost count by now. But then again, when I joined The Motley Fool, I was told there would be no math.
Social climber Zynga (ZNGA) is now bidding adieu to another two executives in what's becoming quite an embarrassing flight of chiefs. This month has already seen chief technology officer of infrastructure Allan Leinwand bite the dust, followed shortly by chief marketing and revenue officer Jeff Karp, who had a rather ill-timed vesting of some of the shares that were given to him to lure him to Zynga in the first place.
Wilson Kriegel, who was chief revenue officer of OMGPOP before Zynga paid so handsomely for the one-hit wonder, has left. Zynga has conceded that Draw Something has "underperformed" relative to the company's early expectations, and was one contributing factor to when it slashed its full-year guidance and now expects adjusted earnings per share to be just $0.04 to $0.09. Kriegel was responsible for making Draw Something more fun and social.
Zynga's chief security officer Nils Puhlmann has now reportedly resigned. He led the company's converged security department and managing various security risks. Interestingly, Puhlmann also spent time at rival Electronic Arts (EA 0.79%) as chief information security officer from 2007 to 2008, but he wasn't one of the three execs that Zynga poached within the past two years -- two of which have now left, including Karp.
Amid the exodus, Zynga has managed to add one executive to its ranks: Maytal Olsha, who will lead Zynga's big push into the world of real-money gambling. It also just purchased developer A Bit Lucky for an undisclosed amount as part of its strategy to diversify away from casual games to more engaging mid-core titles. It's growing its headcount through that acquisition, with the studio's 20 employees -- including CEO Frederic Descamps -- joining Zynga.
