Dr Jo Twist OBE to step down as Ukie CEO

Ukie CEO Dr Jo Twist OBE has announced she is to step down from her role to join the BPI (British Phonographic Industry) as CEO.

Discussing her departure and 11 years at the company, Ukie Chair Tim Woodley said: “Jo will be a hard act to replace and follow but this is an exciting juncture for Ukie and the industry. We obviously need to take time to find the right person to lead Ukie into the next stage of its journey.

“Thankfully we are afforded the time to do this due to the high calibre of the Ukie senior management team and the entirety of the Ukie staff which Jo has galvanised.”

Twist herself added: “I have enjoyed an incredible journey as CEO of Ukie, ensuring we are a future facing, inclusive trade association, which fully reflects and represents the amazingly innovative and creative sector we advocate on behalf of.

“I want to thank the Ukie Board members past and present with whom I have had the great pleasure of working, but without a doubt, the Ukie team past and present deserve all the thanks for being a brilliant, creative, dedicated group of people who will continue to thrive under new leadership. It’s been a decade of change and of phenomenal growth for the UK’s games sector, and I can’t wait to see what the next decade brings.”

Before a permanent successor is named, Sam Collins and Dan Wood will be co-managing the company in the period of transition. Collins has also been promoted from Head of Commercial and Membership to Chief Commercial Officer.

Thank you for all your very kind messages today on the news that I will be leaving @uk_ie after 11 years to head up the @bpi_music. It’s been a ride and it is going to be another exciting time! I love the creative industries and what they do for our hearts, minds, and economy.

— Doctoe (@Doctoe) February 28, 2023

In a 2022 feature with Twist, NME said she was pivotal in helping “make the UK the best place in the world to make video games”.

Describing her as a “key changemaker” whose “passion for the medium has deftly transformed the company to meet the challenges of the modern video games market,” NME said: “Literally billions of new players and the explosion of the online digital gaming age mean it’s been 10 transformative years for the UK games industry since Twist was approached for, and obviously accepted, the job.”

She said of her journey: “I got interested in this thing called the internet that had been given to us. And I started to become really interested in how communities were formed and how identity was played out in different online social contexts, like chat rooms and bulletin boards.”