EA LA's Verdu Heads to Social Game Dev Zynga

Social game developer Zynga, whose games such as Mafia Wars and Vampires appear on networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook, has hired on new executive talent, including former key Electronic Arts employees. Mike Verdu, formerly general manager of EA Los Angeles, now serves at San Francisco-based Zynga as VP of game development. At EA LA, he oversaw the development of real-time strategy game franchises including Command & Conquer and Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth. According to a LinkedIn business networking profile under Verdu's name, he worked at EA from July 2002 to May 2009, joining Zynga in June. Another notable EA hire is Colleen McCreary, former global corporate human resources director, and of university relations, community relations and diversity for EA. She was with EA for five years, and joined Zynga in March as chief people officer. Also now on board with Zynga as general counsel is Reggie Davis, formerly of Yahoo!; former Idealab exec Robert Goldberg as SVP of business operations; and Vish Makhijani as SVP of casual and mobility. Makhijani was most recently CEO of Yandex, a Russian search company. "Working together, these five individuals will address our users’ needs, and their dynamic leadership, business insight, and rich experience will help Zynga take huge strides in the social gaming space," said Zynga CEO Mark Pincus in a statement. Zynga recently announced that it hired on a new exec for a mobile game group that would focus on the Apple iPhone. The company claims to have 10 million daily active users.