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GameStop (GME) fires another CEO, names Ryan Cohen Executive Chairman

Prior to the release of GameStop's Q1 2023 earnings, the company terminated CEO Matt Furlong, effective immediately.

Ozzie Mejia

June 7, 2023 1:17 PM

EPA-EFE/Dean Lewins

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Those who want an idea of how GameStop (GME) performed in the last quarter are probably not encouraged by the news that hit prior to the Q1 2023 earnings report. Moments before the financial quarterly results were released, GameStop announced that CEO Matt Furlong had been terminated. Ryan Cohen was also named the GameStop Executive Chairman.

Here's the full statement from the GameStop Investor Relations website:

GameStop Corp. (NYSE: GME) (“GameStop” or the “Company”) today disclosed that its Board of Directors has elected Ryan Cohen as Executive Chairman, effective immediately. Mr. Cohen’s responsibilities include capital allocation and overseeing management.

In conjunction, the Company's former CEO has been terminated.

Furlong was initially appointed to the GameStop CEO position back in June 2021 after former CEO George Sherman had announced he was stepping down. Furlong had previously worked at Amazon for nine years, most recently serving as its Country Leader and overseeing that company's business in Australia.

Furlong's termination comes months after he had declared that GameStop was on a path to full-year profitability. Needless to say, this is likely not going to pan out, but that remains to be seen.

Despite reporting a loss in fiscal 2022, GameStop ( $GME) CEO Matt Furlong says that the company has a "path to full year profitability."https://t.co/4I25bWUsEm pic.twitter.com/RVnf0UIw7m

— Shacknews (@shacknews) March 21, 2023

"GameStop is a much healthier business today than it was at the start of 2021," Furlong said during March's Q4 2022 earnings call. "We have considerable cash on hand, negligible debt, streamlined inventory, and a path to full-year profitability."

There was no further statement from GameStop, officially. However, new Executive Chairman Ryan Cohen did issue a vague post on Twitter.

Not for long

— Ryan Cohen (@ryancohen) June 7, 2023

We're monitoring this story as it develops and will be on the lookout for GameStop's next CEO. Keep it on Shacknews for the latest updates on GameStop and the company's Q1 2023 earnings.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?