Kristin Binns, Twitter's head of corporate communications, is leaving to join Activision Blizzard as SVP and chief communications officer
Context & Ripple Effects
Kristin Binns arrived at Twitter in 2016 as a senior director of communications hired away from Anthem PR and rose to head of corporate communications; her exit follows an earlier pattern of senior Twitter departures, including the loss of its head of video Baljeet Singh in late 2015.
Her destination matters more than the departure itself: she takes the top communications job at Activision Blizzard, a company whose later coverage shows a C-suite under sustained pressure — president J. Allen Brack's exit amid the California lawsuit fallout in August 2021 and chief legal officer Claire Hart's departure a month later.
First-order effects
- Twitter immediately loses its top corporate communications voice and must backfill the role while already cycling through senior executives.
- Activision Blizzard installs a single SVP-level chief communications officer, centralizing a function it previously ran without one.
Second-order effects
- The comms seat Binns fills becomes a pressure point in Activision Blizzard's 2021 crisis, when the departures of Brack and Hart leave communications carrying more of the company's reputational load.
- Twitter's continued drain of senior leaders raises the cost of retaining remaining executives, who see peers moving to roles with broader mandates elsewhere.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, chief communications officer becomes a revolving seat at companies facing regulatory or legal scrutiny, with publishers like Activision Blizzard rebuilding C-suite functions through external hires rather than internal promotion.
The trend: Senior communications chiefs are moving from social platforms to game publishers as Activision Blizzard repeatedly rebuilds its leadership bench through high-profile external hires.