GameStop’s latest COO has left after seven months in the role

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Jenna Owens, GameStop’s latest Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, has now left the company after a stint of just seven months in the role.

The news was caught thanks to a regulatory filing from GameStop that was dated October 28, 2021. It reveals that Owens and GameStop had reached a separation agreement and that her departure date was October 25. No reason was given for the departure, which seems odd in this case.

The filing added that the role’s responsibilities are now being absorbed by other staff in the company. This could show that GameStop has deliberately split the role up into multiple parts to make for a more streamlined workflow internally. This is something that the company has been good at and worked towards in the past.

Owens only joined GameStop in March 2021, moving on from four years with Amazon and another four years with Google to work with the retailer. She took the role on in June, with Matt Furlong joining from Amazon in Australia too. Mike Recupero, another ex-Amazon executive, joined around the same time to take on the role of CFO.

It’s interesting that no reason has been given for this shift in what is a fairly high up position in the company. It’s possible that a combination of factors have come into play. Namely, Owens may have wanted to move on or didn’t want to have the responsibility, so an agreement was reached. It’s possible that she was still within a probationary period, meaning that there’s no onus on GameStop to provide severance or any sort of benefits.

This September, GameStop reported that net profit was up by 26 percent at $1.1 billion, and net losses had dropped to $61.6 million compared to the colossal $111 million the year before. This was the result of ongoing consolidation efforts to streamline the company and make it much more of an online business than a physical one.