We are delighted to announce the placement of Jesper Gustavsson as VP Product at Calm. Jesper will lead the development and growth of Calmlings, an exciting new game from Calm, reporting directly to co-founders Alex Tew and Michael Acton-Smith.
Calm was founded in 2012, with a mission to make the world happier and healthier. Alex Tew founded The Million Dollar Homepage in 2005 to raise money for his university education. Michael Acton-Smith OBE was founder of Mind Candy – best known for its online world Moshi Monsters – in 2004. At its peak Moshi Monsters attracted over 90m users.
Calm are the developers of the #1 global app for sleep, meditation and relaxation. The Calm app has been downloaded over 180m times and helps users to improve their mental health, manage stress, and live happier and healthier lives, and has received more than 3m 5-star reviews. Calm is looking to introduce a new product to the market. Calmlings is a new cozy game that aims to blend mindfulness and wellbeing within a fun and immersive game world.
Jesper Gustavsson has over ten years experience in the mobile games sector, since graduating from the Stockholm School of Economics with a Masters degree in Accounting and Financial Management. Upon graduation, he joined Good Game Studios, a mid-sized developer of free-to-play mobile and browser-based games. Here, he rose from Trainee Product Manager to Product Lead in three years, working on Empire: Four Kingdoms (one of their flagship strategy games generating around €80m in annual revenues), where he was responsible for managing monetization and live game operations. Later he would work on their innovative new farming strategy game, Big Farm: Mobile Harvest.
Jesper moved to SYBO in 2018, where he worked initially as Game Director for the world’s most popular “endless runner” game, Subway Surfers, which has been downloaded over 2bn times. He also directed product for a new game, Danger Rainbow, which combined an endless runner with elements of casual puzzle games. Most recently as Director of Product, Jesper spearheaded product for Subway Surfers City, the newest endless runner in the franchise.
Commenting on the appointment, Peter Franks, Partner at Neon River said, “Calm is forging a new path in support of mental health and, following the huge success of the Calm app, we are excited for the future release of their Calmlings game. We hope that this new product can help them make further strides in improving happiness and mental health around the world. We are delighted to have helped Jesper join Calm as the new VP Product. I’m confident in Jesper’s wealth of experience in leading product teams within the mobile game space, and in his ability to help the company continue it’s impressive growth.
About Calm
Calm is a mental health company with the #1 app to help you sleep more, stress less and live mindfully, available in both the App Store and Google Play store.
Launched in 2012 by Alex Tew and Michael Acton Smith, Calm was named as Apple’s 2017 iPhone App of the Year; by Google Play as an “Editors’ Choice” in 2018; and found by a major study of 200,000 iPhone users to be “the world’s elated app” – the single app that left users feeling happiest from spending time on it.
Calm offers a large library of content and tools to help people get better sleep, manage stress or anxious feelings, practice gratitude, build a mindfulness practice, and so much more. . One of the most popular offerings on Calm is ‘The Daily Calm’, a 10-minute meditation which explores a fresh mindful theme and inspiring concept each day. Calm is also the creator of the Sleep Story (audio bedtime stories for all ages) and has more than 500+ Sleep Stories today, in addition to a large library of meditations, mindfulness exercises, soundscapes, music, and more delivered by experts and beloved voices.
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About Neon River
Neon River is a boutique executive search firm that helps technology and digital companies hire exceptional leadership talent. We work across VC-backed scaleups, PE-owned businesses, and global tech companies, bringing deep sector expertise, high-touch service, and a track record of delivering outstanding candidates quickly and effectively.