User blog:Smokie-fduser/Introducing the New Fandom Team

Hello, I’m Ben, co-founder of Gamepedia, and along with Brandon we're very excited to share some big news!

Today we’re announcing a major change to how we’re organizing and approaching the core of our business: wikis and content sites. This is just one of the big announcements teased in our recent post about Featured Video.

Fandom is an extension of the passion you demonstrate for your favorite games, shows, movies, books, anime, teams, artists, etc. every single day, from Minecraft to Borderlands, from Arrow to Game of Thrones, from Naruto to One Piece, from James Bond to Harry Potter, from the Boston Bruins to Liverpool. We serve this passion and our purpose is to provide you with the platforms to express it and be recognized for it.

Introducing the Growth Organization
To that end, we have been working hard to reorganize since Fandom and Curse Media joined forces back in January. The result of this work is a group we’re calling the Growth Organization. It combines the major elements of the Curse Media team, including Gamepedia, as well as Fandom’s Community team. Our vision is to provide hands-on support and community management assistance from subject matter experts who have as much passion for their fandoms as you do.

In short? We believe that the business will only succeed if our communities succeed, and to do that we have to take great care of our communities.

This announcement isn’t the end of our work on the reorganization; it’s just the framework. We will continue to build out all of the vertical teams, allowing us to provide better attention to what matters the most: You.

How the Growth Org is Set Up
Leading the Growth org is Donovan Duncan, the former President of Curse Media and now the President of Fandom. Donovan, who reports to Fandom’s CEO, Perkins Miller, is a founding member of Gamepedia, a passionate gamer himself, and an avid fan of movies and TV shows. In this new role, Donovan will continue to be focused on the core of our business—growing communities and new business opportunities—by providing the best experience for the best communities in the world.

Under Donovan, each part of the organization will be led by faces who should be pretty familiar to longtime Fandom and Curse users. There are a lot of awesome business units within the organization, like D&D Beyond, but today we’re going to focus on the ones that directly impact you: the ones who work with our wiki communities.

The four verticals and teams most impactful to you are the Gaming vertical, the TV/Movies vertical, the Anime vertical, and the Editor Experience team. This new structure will allow us to give dedicated attention to the wikis and websites you’ve worked so hard on, and to improve your experience with a community-first focus as our guiding principle.

Meet the Teams
First up we have our Gaming vertical team, overseen by VP of Gaming Ben (smokie) and led directly by Director of Gaming Benjamin (CrsBenjamin). The team includes Will (MisterWoodhouse) and Eva (Mira Laime) as global Community Managers, Hector (CuBaN VeRcEttI) as Spanish Community Manager, Carrol (Game widow) as Wiki Lead for Gamepedia, Joe (JoePlay) as Wiki Lead for Fandom Gaming, James as Content Strategist, and Jada (Jadarina) as Director of Partnerships.

Also reporting into Ben is the Editor Experience team, which will work across all teams to empower editors with what they need to succeed and reward them for their amazing contributions. That team is led by Tim (TimmyQuivvy) as Director of Editor Experience and includes Isaac (FishTank) and CzechOut as Editor Experience Specialists, Mark (MarkvA) as Customization Specialist, and Marc-Philipp (MtaÄ) as International Coordinator.

Overseeing the Anime vertical and the TV/Movies vertical is VP of TV/Movies/Anime Brandon Rhea. Kristopher (Furusato) is our Director of Anime, who will be building out a brand new anime team. Leading up TV/Movies directly is Lucho (Luchofigo85) with a team that includes Elsa (Hypsoline) and Chen (Cal-Boy) as global Community Managers, Antonio (Bola) as Spanish Community Manager, Mike (Cavalier One) as Content Team Lead, Maggie (M2mowens) as Senior Content Strategist, and Brian Linder as Director of Partnerships.

You can also check out our redesigned Staff Page for more info about the people who will be working on these teams, as well as some of your favorites who are on other brand new teams. You’ll be seeing everyone work on the subjects you care about and some of the new plans we have in the works!

What’s next?
Here’s a tease of just SOME of those new things we’re working on right now with other teams:


 * Platform improvements, addressing major community wants and needs
 * New wiki-focused features and editor tools
 * In-person and digital events to connect with our awesome community members
 * Better ways to recognize and reward awesome editors
 * Better ways for contributors to communicate with staff

It’s important to note that this isn’t the start or the end of a journey. Rather, we think of this as a sign along the road on our way to a better Fandom. We have completed a lot of work already, but there’s even more work left to do.

That’s a lot for you to take in and we’re sure you have questions. We’ll answer what we can in the comments.

From all of us at the new Fandom, welcome home.