Yahoo Veteran David Ko Joins Zynga As Mobile SVP

A week after Yahoo announced his departure, David Ko has joined FarmVille developer Zynga as senior vice president of the social gaming studio's mobile operations. Ko had worked at Yahoo since 2000, serving as vice president for its Asia Pacific mobile business for some time. He most recently was senior vice president of Audience, Mobile and Local in North America, overseeing company properties like Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Sports, Yahoo! Finance, and others. Yahoo announced that the ten-year veteran was leaving the company last week along with two other high-level executives, Americas Region EVP Hilary Schneider and Media VP James Pitaro. Earlier today, Pitaro was announced as co-president of Disney's interactive media division along with Playdom CEO John Pleasants. Zynga has made several moves to expand its mobile plans in recent months, acquiring Japanese mobile developer Unoh in August and, in July, establishing a Zynga Japan joint venture focused primarily on social games in the local market with telecommunications/media corporation Softbank. "We are thrilled that David Ko has joined the Zynga team as senior vice president, Mobile," said Zynga in a statement posted by Techcrunch. "David’s extensive experience will be instrumental in his leadership of the Zynga global mobile strategy. David will report to CEO and Founder Mark Pincus." In recent weeks, free-to-play iPhone and iPad games have been doing increasingly well, with FarmVille reaching the top ten highest-grossing iPhone applications in the middle of September.