This episode focuses on how to persevere through market changes and the importance of fostering a productive team. Our guest, Jeff Shouger, has a successful track record of scaling high-growth companies including both Niantic and Zynga. Niantic Inc. is the world's leading augmented reality company with an initial focus on games such as Pokemon Go, Harry Potter, Wizard's Unite, and Ingress.
Shouger advises rising stars and established leaders alike to look for ways to become irrelevant. Professional development, including a focus on strategy and big picture thought leadership, is essential to keeping executives sharp while enabling opportunities for team growth.
Guest Bio
Jeff Shouger is a finance executive with significant leadership experience in managing growth for major players in the interactive entertainment and technology category.
Currently, Shouger leads the finance department at Niantic, Inc., the world’s leading augmented reality company and creator of Pokemon Go, Harry Potter Wizard’s Unite, and Ingress. On the heels of becoming the world’s most successful and most profitable augmented reality company, Shouger led Niantic through multiple capital raises. He secured $500 million in funding from key investors including IVP, Axiomatic, Spark, Meritech, Alsop Louie, and NetEase.
A hallmark of his career, Shouger joined Zynga, a maker of social and mobile games, as it prepared for a key inflection point in growth.
For five years, he scaled the finance department and led the company through a successful IPO. During his tenure with Zynga, the company grew to a billion customers, raised over a billion in capital, and achieved annual revenues in excess of a billion dollars.
Shouger’s strong emphasis on accounting fundamentals is influenced by his time at Ernst & Young, where he spent a decade handling accounting and advisory for high-growth technology companies in the Bay Area.