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(Bloomberg) – Shares of GameStop Corp. rose after the company appointed Elliott Wilke as chief growth officer, the latest in a series of senior executive appointments, and as part of a corporate overhaul by investor activist and member from the Ryan Cohen Board of Directors.
In addition to Wilke, the video game retailer also appointed Andrea Wolfe as VP of Brand Development and Tom Petersen as VP of Merchandising to help execute Cohen’s strategy of transforming the traditional chain into an electronic commerce powerhouse.
Wilke is from Amazon.com, where he has spent the past seven years, and will begin April 5, while Wolfe and Petersen were previously at Chewy Inc. and joined the company effective Monday.
The move gives the impression that Cohen is acting as CEO, Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter said via email. “It is impossible to believe that George [Sherman] would have made these decisions without Cohen’s invitation.
Shares of GameStop rose 11% to $ 202.25 at 9.40 a.m. in New York on Tuesday. About 2 million shares changed hands in the first ten minutes of trading, in line with what has been seen over the past two weeks.
Ahead of Tuesday’s appointments, Cohen had recruited a number of new leaders, including a chief technology officer and the former vice president of customer service at Chewy. GameStop’s CFO was kicked out last month as part of the overhaul, and was followed last week by another senior executive.
GameStop, based in suburb of Dallas, has suffered as the video game industry moves to online distribution. With gamers downloading more and more – or at least ordering software and hardware through ecommerce – there is less reason to visit a physical store.
Read more: GameStop loses luster following profits, sells shares possible
Roller coaster action championed by Reddit-based traders last week reported disappointing fourth-quarter results and hinted that it may sell additional stocks to take advantage of rising demand. GameStop has collected over 950% so far this year.
GameStop trading has been a roller coaster ride for the past five weeks as the retail darling saw a second wave of euphoria from amateur investors. The stock skyrocketed during the first ten days of March before experiencing episodes of heightened volatility as armed retail traders on Reddit argued with short sellers.
(Updates share movement throughout, adds Wedbush’s comment in fourth paragraph.)
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