Zynga Inc.’s share price down, appoints David Lee as Chief Financial Officer to replace Mark Vranesh

Zynga Inc. made an official statement, announcing that it appointed Mr. David Lee, who is to take the position of Chief Financial Officer and Chief Accounting Officer of the company, replacing Mr. Mark Vranesh, who leaves after a six-year cooperation.

The change in the executive ranks of Zynga Inc. comes as one of the steps made by the Chief Executive Officer Mr. Don Mattrick in his attempt to improve the state of the social games developer, which has been facing decreased growth due to the fact many players chose mobile devices.

As reported by Bloomberg, the company noted in its statement that Mr. Lee “has a track record of helping turn companies around, and a proven ability to make smart decisions that ensure sustained financial success for corporations.”

Mr. David Lee, who was occupying the role of Senior Vice President of finance at Best Buy Co., is to take the position of CFO and CAO on April 14th 2014. according to the statement. Mr. Lee would oversee Zynga Inc.s corporate finance, accounting and investor relations.

The current Chief Executive Officer of Zynga Inc. – Mr. Mattrick – has worked for Microsoft Corp. before taking the helm of Zynga in July 2013. He started assigning new roles to several of companys executives as well as cutting positions in an attempt to shift companys focus from games to handsets and other mobile devices such as tablets.

In addition, Chief Executive Officer Mattrick has managed to reduce companys costs, including a head-count reduction estimated to 15%. The results of the new strategy proved out to be satisfactory enough, because Mr. Mattrick noted in the statement he was “pleased” with the progress made by Zynga. He said in the statement, cited by Bloomberg: “This year is off to a solid start, and our teams have created a strong base for growth throughout 2014.”

According to Financial Times, shares of Zynga Inc. fell 6.86% to close at 4.07 USD on NASDAQ yesterday, while companys one-year return rate was 17.97%. According to data published by CNN Money, the 19 analysts offering 12-month price forecasts for Zynga Inc. have a median target of 4.00, with a high estimate of 7.00 and a low estimate of 3.00. The median estimate represents a -1.72% decrease from the last price of 4.07.