The revolving door on the game industry's executive suite took a few spins this week. Foremost among these was the appointment of Bill Gardner as head of SCi/Eidos' North American publishing operations. Gardner will continue to be based in the San Francisco Bay Area, site of Crystal Dynamics, the publisher's sole US studio following the closure of Ion Storm.

Gardner is known for his long tenure as president of Capcom USA and Capcom Europe; he was also a founder of O-3 Entertainment, a company made of up of game-industry veterans dedicated to helping indie developers find distribution deals. Its most notorious success story? O-3 is the publisher of Alien Hominid. Chris Jelinek, 0-3's vice president of sales and marketing, will take over for Gardner and help the company "place a greater emphasis on key relationships in Japan and other Asian countries and Europe."

Meanwhile, inside Europe, German Publisher CDV Software Entertainment AG announced it also has a new top dog stateside. Former Atari VP of sales and the once VP of business development at Ditan Distribution Tom Gross was appointed CEO and president of the Codename: Panzers publisher's North American subsidiary. "We are dedicated as a global company to expand on our successes in North America, and have taken a number of steps to make our titles more accessible and attractive to audiences in the United States and Canada," said Gross in a statement.