General Manager

About KIMARU Talent: Founded in 2020, KIMARU Talent partners with VCs, founders, and executives to recruit top-tier talent for gaming studios and tech startups. “KIMARU” is a Japanese verb meaning “to decide (a victory),” which reflects our belief that every great hire moves a company closer to its next win. We believe that business growth starts with great people. With deep expertise in startup recruitment, we’re proud to support our clients in making critical hiring decisions as they scale. Role Summary: We’re partnering with an independent mobile game studio to find a General Manager to help lead and scale their next phase of growth. This is a hands-on leadership role reporting directly to the Founder/CEO, responsible for driving alignment across production, operations, and business functions. The GM will turn strategic vision into clear execution plans and ensure the organization operates with focus, accountability, and high performance. The studio is small but globally successful, with its top game having 300 million downloads worldwide with no paid user acquisition. With this impressive track record, the studio will continue to operate its hit games while developing new ones. They operate with a strong values-driven culture centered on ownership, discipline, and results. In this role, you will: • Oversee production across multiple game initiatives and ensure delivery against milestones and quality targets • Lead and align cross-functional teams across design, art, engineering, and product • Own studio operations including process design, workflow efficiency, and organizational coordination • Partner with leadership on planning, hiring, and resource allocation • Drive visibility into live game performance using key metrics such as engagement, retention, and revenue • Support monetization, roadmap planning, and live operations strategy • Strengthen performance systems, accountability structures, and team culture • Identify and mitigate operational, production, and compliance risks Required Experience: • The ideal candidate brings deep experience in mobile game production and live operations, with a strong ability to connect creative direction to business outcomes. • Prior experience in a studio leadership, executive production, or operations role • Experience shipping and managing liveOps for free-to-play mobile games. • Nice-to-have: Experience managing cross-functional teams and multiple concurrent projects, ideally across different geographic locations/time zones This is a rare opportunity to join a high-performing, independent studio at a pivotal stage of growth and have a direct impact on both the product and the organization. Location: Los Angeles (on-site, 5 days/week)