Atari Appoints Jeff Lapin to CEO, Replacing David Gardner

Atari today announced a change in management at the top. David Gardner, who had been serving as CEO of Atari worldwide, will step down but retain his Director functions. Taking his place as CEO will be Jeff Lapin, who joined as Chief Operating Officer (COO) in May 2009 and has been a Director of the company since December 2007. Lapin's experience prior to Atari includes various executive functions at RazorGator Interactive Group, Take-Two Interactive Software and THQ. 

In his new role of CEO of Atari's global operations, Lapin will run the business from Los Angeles and lead the Executive Committee which is now composed of Jim Wilson (CEO of Atari Inc.), John Needham (CEO of Cryptic Studios Inc.), Fabrice Hamaide (CFO of the Group), and Alexandra Fichelson (General Secretary).

 “For the last 2 years, first as a Director of the Board and then as COO, I have contributed to the transformation of Atari. It has been a challenging time, which resulted in a new publishing strategy with a strong online focus and a shift of the operations to the US. We will launch our second MMO game – Star Trek Online - in February 2010. I am excited to take on these new responsibilities at this important time and look forward to developing Atari’s strategy to bring the company back to profitability,” commented Lapin.

From a financial perspective, Atari noted that Lapin "will benefit from the same compensation package he had as a Chief Operating Officer, which had been set by the Board of Directors upon recommendation of the Compensation and nomination committee i.e. an annual fixed gross compensation of €400,000 and an annual variable compensation, subject to the achievement of performance criteria, up to €200,000."  Lapin had also been granted back on May 25 of this year 900,000 stock options, with an exercise price of €5.16 per stock, subject to the achievement of performance criteria. Atari also said that senior management's performance will now be judged on qualitative criteria (weighted at 60 percent) and quantitative criteria (weighted at 40 percent).  

It's not clear why Gardner is being replaced. We asked Atari if this was Atari's decision or Gardner's. We'll let you know if we hear anything.