Skillz (NYSE: SKLZ), the leading mobile games platform bringing fair and fun competition to players worldwide, today announced that Jeff Shouger, former Chief Financial Officer of Niantic, Inc. throughout its $3.5 billion acquisition by Scopely, has agreed to serve as an advisor to the Skillz Board of Directors (the “Board”). In his role, Shouger will work closely with the Board and leadership team, providing guidance on capital markets strategy, financial discipline, operational scale, and long-term value creation.
As CFO of Niantic, the world’s leading augmented reality company and creator of Pokémon GO, Ingress, and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, Shouger led multiple successful capital raises totaling nearly $1 billion.
Prior to Niantic, Mr. Shouger served as Vice President of Finance and Chief Accounting Officer at Zynga, where he helped lead the company through its successful $1 billion IPO, scaled the finance organization during a period of rapid growth, and supported more than 25 strategic M&A transactions.
“Jeff is a proven financial leader with a rare combination of public-company rigor, capital markets expertise, and deep experience in interactive entertainment,” said Andrew Paradise, Chief Executive Officer of Skillz. “As we continue to sharpen our financial discipline and scale our business for long-term growth, Jeff’s experience helping companies navigate critical moments of expansion and capital formation will be a meaningful asset to both our leadership team and the Board.”
With more than two decades of financial leadership experience across high-growth technology and interactive entertainment companies, Shouger has guided organizations through critical moments of scale, capital formation, and transformation. Earlier in his career, he held senior finance roles at data.ai (formerly App Annie), where he led a $50 million capital raise, and Proteolix, where he was part of the internal team that completed the company’s $851 million sale to Onyx.
“Skillz has built a differentiated ecosystem that brings together competition, technology, monetization, and ad tech in a way few companies can,” said Shouger. “I look forward to supporting the leadership team as an advisor as they continue to strengthen their businesses with a focus on disciplined, long-term value creation.”
About Skillz Inc.
Skillz (NYSE: SKLZ) is a leading mobile games platform dedicated to bringing out the best in everyone through competition. The Skillz platform helps developers create multi-million-dollar franchises by enabling social competition in their games. Leveraging its patented technology, Skillz hosts billions of tournaments for millions of mobile players worldwide, with the goal of building the home of competition for all. Skillz has been recognized by Fast Company’s Best Workplaces for Innovators, CNBC’s Disruptor 50, Forbes’ Next Billion-Dollar Startups, Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, and the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing companies in America. For more information, visit www.skillz.com.
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