French-headquartered game publisher and developer Ubisoft has announced the appointment of Yannis Mallat as the new Chief Executive Officer of its Montreal studio, following the departure of Martin Tremblay, who had served as the studio's COO since 2000 after first joining the company in 1999 as its executive vice president. Mallat, who will head the 1,400 person studio, has worked on titles including the Sands of Time trilogy (Prince of Persia The Two Thrones, Prince of Persia Warrior Within, Prince of Persia The Sands of Time), as well as Rayman Advance. He originally joined Ubisoft in 2000 as Third Party Producer and then as Producer and Executive Producer - New Intellectual Properties. In order to allow Yannis to focus himself entirely on his new mission, Sabine Hamelin - the studio's founder in 1997 - will become Executive Vice-President Corporate Affairs and as such will manage government and institutional relations. "I am convinced that this new organization will serve the best interests of our Montreal studio" said Yves Guillemot, Chief Executive Officer of Ubisoft Entertainment. "The studio now has all the necessary tools to foster the teams' artistic vision, and reach its new ambition: to become the world's premier development studio not only by size but also - and most importantly - by the quality of the games developed."