Frank Tindle · Operations executive
Thirty-one years building the teams that keep businesses running. Grow fast enough and your operation becomes the thing holding you back. I stop that happening.
Supermassive Games Ltd · Electronic Arts Inc · Criterion Software Ltd (Games and RenderWare) · Acclaim Entertainment Inc – Iguana Entertainment Ltd
What I’m useful for
Three acquisitions, three integrations, across three decades. Acclaim’s purchase of Iguana in 1995, where I unified email across New York, Austin, Utah and the UK. EA’s £40M acquisition of Criterion in 2004, where Guildford, Paris, Austin and Tokyo folded into EA’s infrastructure, 300+ people, zero disruption to game releases. Then Supermassive into Nordisk Games in 2022. The technical half is the easy half. The rest is people deciding whether to stay.
Founded a cross-functional group spanning operations, HR, IT and studio management to take the grind out of routine work. Started as four people comparing notes and became the way the back office thinks about this. The useful wins are unglamorous and that’s the point. The current flagship: a weekly service report that builds itself from live Freshservice data — drafted with Claude, reviewed by a human before it sends, benchmarked against HDI and Gartner — alongside the ticket triage and admin that quietly eat a week a month.
Joined a 30-person work-for-hire studio as its only IT manager. Built the operational side of the business from a standing start to a team of 16, covering IT, workplace, facilities, physical and cyber security, events and procurement, then carried it to a multi-site group that peaked at 387 people, and through acquisition by Nordisk Games. Sat on the Senior Leadership Team.
Then the industry turned, as it has right across the sector. I ran the estate and the function through a sustained contraction: sites consolidated, run rate cut, workforce reductions handled directly and decently, people absorbed from departments that were closing. The function went from 16 to 9 as the group went from 387 people to around 170 — and service held at or above HDI and Gartner benchmarks throughout. Scaling down well is rarer than scaling up, and a good deal harder to do properly.
Took a studio from 14,000 sq ft into 40,000 across two buildings with nobody losing a working day. Earlier, part of the leadership team on a 96,000 sq ft fit-out consolidating three EA sites into one. And on the way out of a building, took the dilapidations works in-house rather than accepting the landlord’s contractor, and delivered them well under the schedule.
What the studio said
“Best IT department in the kingdom, no doubt.”
Staff satisfaction return, 2026
“Issue resolved quickly and all software working as intended.”
Staff satisfaction return, 2026
Every satisfaction rating returned in the most recent reported weeks scored the service the top mark — over the period the function ran at its leanest, benchmarked against HDI and Gartner.
Background
Thirty-one years in operations, most of it in games, across multiple BAFTA-winning studios. Sixteen at Supermassive Games as IT & Operations Director, before that Criterion through the Burnout years — three BAFTAs for Burnout 3: Takedown — and the EA acquisition, and before that Acclaim as Director of Operations.
SME to enterprise and back. Four corporate parents along the way — Canon at Criterion, Acclaim out of New York, EA after the acquisition, Egmont after Nordisk Games bought Supermassive — running operations at every size from a 30-person studio to a global publisher’s campus.
Running the operational half of a business. I build good teams and get out of their way. No fuss, no jargon. Let people focus on the work and nothing else.
Next step
I’m open to approaches about Operations Director, IT Director and Head of Operations roles, and to fractional or advisory arrangements. Equally happy to talk if you're scaling, moving, or working out what your operation should look like a year from now. Drop me a line and we'll talk it through.