Dive Brief:

• Diana Saadeh-Jajeh, who had served as GameStop’s chief financial officer for about a year, submitted her resignation on July 21. She will leave the company effective Aug. 11, according to a Thursday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
• No reason was given for her resignation, but the retailer said Saadeh-Jajeh’s departure “was not because of any disagreement with the company on any matter relating to the company’s operations, policies or practices.”
• Saadeh-Jajeh is the third person to serve as CFO in the last two years. In her place, GameStop said Daniel Moore — the company’s vice president of corporate global controller and vice president of global tax — will serve as principal accounting officer and interim principal financial officer.

Dive Insight:

Executive leadership turnover has affected the video game retailer for the past several years.

The impending departure of Saadeh-Jajeh continues the streak. She joined the company in June 2020 and previously served as interim CFO for five months in 2021, according to a company proxy statement. Saadeh-Jajeh replaced former CFO Michael Recupero, who was fired in July 2022. Recupero replaced CFO Jim Bell, who resigned in the spring of 2021.

Moore joined the company in 2021, according to GameStop’s SEC filing. Before joining the company in 2021, Moore was vice president of tax at Elevate Textiles and director of international tax at Roper Technologies. He has over 18 years of experience in accounting and tax matters.

As CFO, Saadeh-Jajeh said on LinkedIn that her responsibilities included overseeing a team of about 125 people. She described herself as the “decision maker for key business strategies,” including debt management, cash flow optimization, cost reduction initiatives and real estate optimization.

In June, the company fired CEO Matt Furlong after about two years in that role. Furlong came to GameStop from Amazon, where he had led that company’s business in Australia. At the same time, the company appointed Ryan Cohen as executive chairman. The investor and founder of pet supply retailer Chewy joined GameStop’s board of directors in January 2021 after the retailer formed a deal with Cohen's activist investment firm, RC Ventures.

Also last month, GameStop appointed Mark Robinson as principal executive officer and general manager. Robinson has served as the company’s vice president and general counsel since January 2022. Alan Attal was also named lead independent director of the board.

GameStop has also struggled financially and operationally in recent years as video game publishers and console makers have shifted online and away from in-store releases of popular titles and franchises. Nevertheless, in March, the company posted its first quarterly profit in two years. But for the overall fiscal year ended Jan. 28, the company reported sales were nearly flat in 2022 at $5.93 billion versus $6.01 billion the previous year.

For the first quarter, the company reported its net sales decreased year over year from $1.38 billion to $1.24 billion. GameStop’s net loss also fell from $157.9 million to $50.5 million, while operating loss fell year over year from $153.7 million to $58.4 million.

GameStop said in a May proxy statement that it had about 11,000 full-time salaried and hourly employees and that it employed an additional 14,000 to 27,000 part-time hourly employees globally, depending on the time of year.