Big Fish's former president, CEO returns to head the company

Big Fish Games' president and CEO Jeremy Lewis will resign from his roles at the company, allowing his predecessor Paul Thelen to once again head the casual game developer and publisher. Thelen founded Big Fish in 2002, and served as the Seattle-based company's president and CEO while the studio made a name for itself with hit games like Mahjong Towers and the Mystery Case Files series. He eventually brought in Lewis, formerly a managing director at Goldman Sachs, to take over those roles several years ago. During his tenure, Lewis helped build Big Fish into one of the largest casual game companies with some 600 employees. The publisher recently reported its ninth straight year of record revenues after seeing its sales increased by 30 percent year-over-year to $180 million in 2011 -- mostly from growth in digital sales for its 2500+ game catalog across PCs and smartphones. In a company memo obtained by AllThingsD, Lewis shed some more light on the company's success, noting, "To date in 2012 we’ve achieved several record breaking $1MM+ revenue days on our PC and Mac platform." Lewis' departure comes as Big Fish prepares to launch its Universal Cloud Gaming Service, expand its PC/Mac/mobile marketplaces to offer free-to-play games, and enter Facebook's social casino games market after its acquisition of Self Aware Games (Card Ace: Casino). He will step down from his positions on April 30, but he will stay on Big Fish's board of directors. While Lewis headed the company, Thelen served as the chief strategy officer and board of directors chairman for Big Fish.