Netflix Poaches Activision Blizzard CFO

By Austin Wilson| @TheAustinPost1

Activision stated on a December 31st
regulatory filing that the company plans to
terminate its contract with its chief financial
officer Spencer Neumann, who held the

position since 2017. Mr. Neumann will be
replaced by Dennis Durkin, who was
Activision’s CFO for five years, from 2012 to
2017.

Activision claims that the company is
parting ways with Neumann, “ for cause
unrelated to the Company’s financial

reporting or disclosure controls and
procedures,” which begged the question of
why they would fire such someone

in such a high position?

News site, Reuter, published an article on
New Year’s Eve that it received information
from a trustworthy source that Netflix

had poached Spencer Neumann while he
was still employed at Activision. It appears
that Neumann had been negotiating

with the streaming service to replace their
CFO of 14 years, and was caught by
Activision with his pants down.

Netflix confirmed the accuracy of Reuter's
sources on Wednesday when the company
made a press release that it had indeed
hired Spencer Neumann as its new
company CFO.

2018 was not a kind year for Activision.
Within the last five months, the company
faced a great deal of controversy, resulting
in a drop in stock prices and investors jumping
ship. Activision tried to make up the costs by
firing 100 Blizzard employees and reducing
its financial goals for 2019.

Spencer Neumann is believed to be
responsible in Activision Blizzard's decision
to follow EA's ‘games as service’ model as

well as the company's change in focus
towards investors rather than consumers.
He's also partly responsible Activision's
sights on the Chinese markets with titles like
Diablo Immortal, which suffered backlash
due to the games abysmal Blizzcon 2018

trailer reveal.

Needless to say, gamers won't be crying
anytime soon over him leaving the industry.