Former ID@Xbox Director Agostino Simonetta joins Thunderful as Chief Strategy & Investment Officer

Swedish gaming powerhouse Thunderful Group continues building on the momentum. As their games business grows across all KPIs, the company now brings in an industry veteran to further strengthen the executive management team.

Agostino Simonetta most recently comes from seven years at Microsoft, where he’s been Director of Global Partnership Management at the ID@Xbox program. Simonetta – who has also worked at PlayStation Europe, SEGA Europe and THQ during the course of his two decades within the games industry – leaves ID@Xbox in good health.

Taking up his new role as CSO of Thunderful Group, Simonetta will focus 100% on the Games segment and look to build on connections made with the world’s best development studios, to help power the Swedish group’s offering to developers across the globe. Outside of its development and publishing efforts, Thunderful also acquires great studios and invests in outstanding game projects.

“For me, Thunderful represents an exciting opportunity to take all the experience I’ve amassed over the last 20 years and plug it into a company that has developers and their goals at their heart,” says Simonetta on his new appointment. “Through Thunderful I can continue to support developers all over the world, and will help bring great developers and games into the Thunderful family.”

Simonetta’s appointment comes as part of a period of continued evolution for Thunderful, which over the course of the past 18 months has acquired UK-based studio Coatsink, German game publisher and developer Headup, Swedish developers Station Interactive and Guru Games, while also setting up a new studio in Malmö.

“We are game developers at heart, and we always put the wants and needs of game developers at the centre of what we do,” says Thunderful Group’s CEO Brjann Sigurgeirsson. “That runs right through the games we make and publish, the studios we’ve acquired, and the appointments we’ve made in the business. Getting Ago on board is a big reinforcement, and I’m very happy that he’s joining the family. He understands the Thunderful project and is eager to help us build it. He's well-known throughout the industry and has vital connections with the kind of talented studios we want to work with.”

Simonetta begins work at Thunderful on the 1st of July.