Riot Games has been the subject of a hurricane of controversy over the last month and a half. A report about a culture of toxicity and sexual harassment rocked the company, leading to a number of current and former employees speaking up about the emphasis on a “cultural fit” within the company and the harassment that trickled down from it. Recently, Riot promised to do better, and has made a highly visible hire to make progress toward that goal.
Francis Frei, a former executive at the rideshare service Uber and former Harvard Business School professor, has been tapped to join Riot. Frei was a strong driving force at both those organizations for diversity and inclusion, having been brought into Uber to help fix the company’s reputation for contentious and often virulent corporate culture. Frei has been meeting with Riot’s CEO and executives over the last few weeks to get an immediate jump on the problems within the League of Legends developer.
Riot recently let two high-profile employees go, at least one for violating a social media policy, after they publicly scolded the community for its reaction to an exclusively female and nonbinary panel at PAX West.
Source: Game Informer Riot Taps Former Uber Executive To Help Reform Corporate Culture