Xbox Names 2 New Chiefs, Taps Matthew Ball as CSO and Scott Van Vliet as CTO

5 articles · Updated · GamesIndustry.biz · May 20

Asha Sharma added two top lieutenants to Xbox’s leadership team, bringing in industry analyst Matthew Ball as chief strategy officer and Azure AI infrastructure executive Scott Van Vliet as chief technology officer.
Ball had already been advising Xbox strategy and starts officially this month, while Van Vliet is tasked with improving the product-development pipeline after prior gaming-platform work at Amazon.
Chris Schnakenberg was also promoted to corporate vice president for partnerships and business development, expanding Xbox’s push on third-party developer and publisher relationships.
Sharma told staff the changes are meant to create more clarity and improve execution, while saying teams on hardware, the next-generation Project Helix and the console OS will remain unchanged.
The appointments follow a broader leadership reshuffle earlier in May, when Sharma installed 4 executives from Microsoft’s CoreAI ranks and reassigned 4 existing Xbox leaders.

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