Maria Sayans Joins CCP as Chief Customer Officer

REYKJAVIK, ICELAND – December 8, 2015 – CCP Games, a leading independent game developer, today announced it has hired Maria Sayans as its Chief Customer Officer (CCO), a newly created position. In her role of CCO, Sayans will focus on the company’s total relationship with its customers, overseeing CCP’s Marketing, Sales, Web Development, and Customer Services teams in Reykjavik, Shanghai, Atlanta, and Newcastle.

Sayans comes to CCP from Electronic Arts (EA), where she spent 14 years in a variety of key marketing leadership roles. Most recently Sayans was senior director of marketing at EA’s DICE studio, where she oversaw the global marketing efforts for the Battlefield and Mirror’s Edge franchises.

“As we embark on this new chapter in CCP’s story, it’s really important to us to further build on the fantastic relationship we’ve built with our customers,” said Hilmar Veigar Pétursson, CEO of CCP. “Maria will help us unify our communications across teams and studios so we can better enable our players to realize their wildest dreams.”

Prior to her time at EA, Sayans was a management consultant with McKinsey & Company.

Sayans joins CCP as the company prepares for several high-profile game launches, including EVE: Valkyrie, the multiplayer virtual reality (VR) spaceship combat game that has quickly become the most anticipated title for the launch of both the Oculus Rift and PlayStation VR headsets, and EVE Online: Citadel, the next massive expansion to EVE Online, set for release in the first quarter of 2016.

Sayans will soon help open CCP’s London office, and will report directly to CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson.

“I can’t think of a better place to be a part of the VR revolution than CCP,” said Sayans. “The company’s early leadership in VR and pioneering status in online gaming is quickly translating into real results and we aim to build on and extend that in the coming years.”

About CCP CCP is a leading independent game developer and has been praised for its artistry, game design and unique player-driven, infinitely scalable storytelling narratives. CCP is the creator of the critically acclaimed science-fiction game EVE Online (PC/Mac), DUST 514®, a groundbreaking, free-to-play, massively multiplayer online first-person shooter for the PlayStation®3, and Gunjack™, a virtual reality action game for the Samsung Gear VR mobile platform. The company is currently developing EVE: Valkyrie™, a multiplayer virtual reality spaceship dogfighting shooter for PCs and the PlayStation®4. Founded and headquartered in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1997, CCP is privately held, with additional offices in Atlanta, Newcastle, and Shanghai. For more information, visit www.ccpgames.com.