Nintendo of America Looking for New VP of Corporate Affairs; Perrin Kaplan Gone?

July 30, 2007 | By: James Brightman

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Nintendo of America has yet to confirm the departure of longtime marketing executive Perrin Kaplan, but the company is already advertising her job on its corporate website. The sales and marketing team is moving to Redwood City and New York by September, but Kaplan won't be among them it seems. [Updated]

In early June, Game Informer broke the news that Nintendo of America would be moving its sales and marketing team and that three key execs could be leaving the company: George Harrison, Perrin Kaplan and Beth Llewelyn. A couple days later, Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime confirmed the move and indicated that about 60 percent of the staff would be leaving the company. He did not address the status of the executive trio, but now GameDaily BIZ has spotted the surest sign yet that Perrin Kaplan, Vice President, Marketing and Corporate Affairs, is on her way out.

A new job listing for a VP of Corporate Affairs has appeared on Nintendo of America's site; the job is located at Nintendo's new Redwood City office. The job description, duties and official title certainly match up with Kaplan's, so we can't imagine why this listing would be up on Nintendo's site if she wasn't moving on.

Kaplan joined Nintendo in 1992 and has played a key role in the marketing of Nintendo products over the years, most recently with the successful launch of the Wii.

The status of the other two execs is still up in the air. GameDaily BIZ met with George Harrison at E3, and the Senior VP told us he's "involved in making the transition happen because Reggie's the President and will stay in Redmond, and we're getting underway with a big recruiting effort because, not surprisingly, a variety of people are not going to make the move." The transition, according to Harrison, is still on track to be completed by September.

We've contacted Nintendo for comment regarding the job listing. We'll bring you official word as soon as we hear it.

[UPDATE] Still no word from Nintendo, but we noticed that the jobs page also has a listing for Sr. Director of Corporate Communications, which would seem to align with Beth Llewelyn's position, as well as listings for Manager or Director of Corporate Communications.

[UPDATE 2] A Nintendo spokesperson from external PR firm GolinHarris told GameDaily BIZ, "Perrin is still at Nintendo. I'll update you if I hear anything." Of course, technically that could be true and Perrin Kaplan could be gone by September. After all, David Jaffe stressed that he was still at SCEA just last month and now we know that he's left the company to form Eat, Sleep, Play.