PTW appoints new CPO and COO

Games and tech services outsourcer Pole to Win International (PTW) has announced two senior hires to its executive team: Kasturi Rangan as Chief Product Officer and Andy Emery as Chief Operating Officer.

Emery joined the company in 2015 when his development company SIDE was acquired by the firm. Initially, he oversaw two new SIDE locations in Los Angeles and Shanghai before being promoted to president of Europe. He’s described as having “has a history of innovative thinking and sharp decision-making”.

Rangan has advanced to the role of Chief Product Officer where he will oversee the product innovation and transformation arm of PTW globally. Rangan has been at PTW for nearly a decade, “significantly growing and leading operations across [PTW’s] quality assurance, innovation, and customer experience lines of business”. In his most recent role as PTW’s Regional President, he led the North American and India operations and was recently appointed as the CEO of PTW’s new game and product development brand, Orange Rock Studios.

“PTW is thrilled to have Andy as a part of our executive team,” said Deborah Kirkham, CEO of PTW. “Andy is immensely creative and is also a force for reason in a complex, and often disorderly, global business landscape. His broad industry and entrepreneurial experience is particularly unique, and we benefit from his vision and depth of expertise daily. We’re honored to welcome him to the C-Suite and look forward to his continued contributions to PTW.”

“The best CPOs are visionaries of the future and evangelists for great product; Rangan is both. Rangan is the voice of innovation and a power for disruption at PTW; he is the natural choice as our CPO, and I welcome Rangan to the C-Suite,” added Kirkham. 

“With these two new appointments, PTW is now poised to move into a bright and successful future. Rangan and Andy bring very different and necessary voices to our team of leaders and we are already working together to build the future of PTW and the future of gaming.” 

PTW established a new video games development studio, Orange Rock Studios back in December. The company says the new studio will “enhance the service offering of PTW, a gaming industry stalwart with an established and diverse dossier of top-tier clients across multiple verticals” and says the new endeavour will house four departments: product development, game production, staff augmentation, and esports division Orange Rock Esports.