Sega of America and Sega of Europe have jointly announced that they have pooled their respective management teams together into one unit, in order to deal with all Western markets in one. Naoya Tsurumi is now CEO at both Sega of America and Sega Europe, with Simon Jeffery as President and COO of Sega of America, while Sue Hughes is appointed Vice President of Sales at Sega of America and Mike Hayes becomes COO of Sega Europe.
Tsurumi will now be responsible for managing Sega's software business in both territories, and will encourage more joint development and acquisition across America and Europe. "Integrating the management of our U.S. and European organizations will allow Sega's Western regions to aggressively develop and pursue products that appeal to Western consumers," said Tsurumi.
In addition to establishing the new order of Sega management, this news also returns Simon Jeffery to prominence after his abrupt
departure from LucasArts in 2003. Prior to LucasArts, Jeffery was Vice President of marketing for Virgin Interactive Entertainment and a manager at Electronic Arts.
