The new hires at Kabam include the following industry executives and innovators:

Mike Dashow, Art Director

A well-known artist and art director in both the sci-fi/fantasy community and the gaming world, Mike Dashow spent seven years at Blizzard Entertainment, working on both the blockbuster hit Diablo II and the upcoming Diablo III. Prior to that, he worked on Broderbund Software's Living Books line of children's products. Most recently, Dashow was Art Director at hi5 Networks, Inc., and prior to that, Art Director at Meez.com. His digital and traditional artwork has won numerous awards and has been featured in Spectrum and Expose as well as magazines in Europe and Asia. His cover for Peter S. Beagle’s The Rhinoceros Who Quoted Nietzsche, which won the Chesley for Best Paperback Book Cover of the Year in 1997, was the first digital piece ever to win that honor.

Sheridan Hitchens, VP Product & Revenue

An experienced management and product strategist, Sheridan Hitchens joins Kabam after serving as VP of Marketing and Product Management at Brightstorm, Inc. Previously, Hitchens spent four years at PlayFirst, most recently as VP of Product Management and prior to that, Director of Product Management as he oversaw the development and growth of PlayFirst.com, as well as the community, multi-player and micro-transaction platforms. He also served as Managing Consultant at Towers Perrin and as a Project Manager at Procter & Gamble earlier in her career. A graduate of University of Cambridge, Hitchens received his M.B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley - Walter A. Haas School of Business.

Tim Villanueva, EVP of Engineering

A technologist and technology executive, Tim Villanueva has worked with both growing startups and industry leaders over his 20-year career. Most recently, he was CTO of TurnHere, Inc., and prior to that, CTO of Ustream.tv. He was GM PayPal Platform and Developer Network for eBay’s subsidiary PayPal, where he spearheaded PayPal's payments integration platform & strategy. Previously, he was VP/GM at Yahoo! HotJobs after initially joining HotJobs.com as CTO. During his nine-year tenure with Intuit, he served in a variety of roles, including Chief Architect and Director of Business Development & Product Management. He was one of the original engineers of the best-selling Quicken personal accounting software.

“We have hand picked an incredibly talented management team to facilitate Kabam’s rapid growth while maintaining and expanding on our standards for product quality and entertainment value,” said Kabam CEO Kevin Chou. “This past year the infusion of seasoned executive talent from gaming, entertainment and payment industry leaders and great franchises has set the foundation to allow us to grow up literally over night scaling multiple studios in three locations building out ever deeper, more engaging social games.  The lineup is now in place to execute the next phase of Kabam – evolving and expanding on our leadership in making real games for social gamers.”

Previously this year, Kabam also added a wealth of executive talent, including the following:

• Chief Product Officer Andrew Sheppard, previously Senior Manager, Strategy & Development at Electronic Arts and Executive Producer at hi5 Networks, Inc.
• Chief People Officer Scott Thomas, formerly VP of Operations for Playdom
• Managing Director, Asia Andy Lee, who led NBA China’s digital strategy and content distribution across China and business development and interactive media operations for News Corporation’s subsidiary STAR TV China
• Chief Operating Officer Chris Carvalho, who spent a decade heading up Lucasfilm's business development efforts and driving the company's digital media strategy and partnerships, including Lucas Online, the division responsible for publishing StarWars.com

Both rounds of hires strengthen and diversify Kabam’s founding team, which includes the CEO Chou, formerly of the global venture capital firm Canaan Partners, Chief Technical Officer Michael Li, who was the founding CEO of mobile location-based startup 6th Sense Communications, strategy games studio General Manager Wayne Chan, who previously managed widget development across AOL and Time Warner’s large breadth of social properties, and casual games General Manager Holly Liu, a veteran of AOL, Accenture, and Arthur Andersen.