Driven more by conviction than by legacy, Charlie Guillemot, the son of Yves Guillemot, returns to Ubisoft to lead its internal transformation. With a blend of product expertise, tech culture, and a passion for gaming, he represents a new generation intent on combining innovation, high standards, and respect for players.
Ubisoft began as a family venture. In the late 1980s, the five Guillemot brothers were among a group of pioneers within an industry which was just beginning to take off. In 1986, the brothers founded Ubisoft, driven by a strong belief that video games would become a major cultural force. What started as a distribution company quickly grew into a game developer, making its mark with titles that would become iconic, from Zombi and Rayman to global franchises like Assassin’s Creed. Today, Ubisoft is a network of more than 35 studios and 17,000 employees. It stands as one of Europe’s most remarkable business success stories.
Much has changed since those early days. As Ubisoft enters a new phase, a new generation is stepping up to the plate. Charlie Guillemot, son of long-time CEO Yves Guillemot, has returned to the company after several years as an entrepreneur. With fresh experience and a forward-looking mindset, he’s now taking on some of Ubisoft’s biggest challenges. He is a leader who sees transformation as his playing field.
Carving his own path
He doesn’t deny his legacy, but he refuses to let it define him. Charlie has built his career on personal convictions, hands-on product experience, and a strong appetite for innovation.
After attending the French Lycée in London, he went on to study at the University of Warwick earning a bachelor’s degree in Business Management, followed by a master’s degree in Computer Science at UCL. His education already reflected a hybrid profile at the intersection of business and technology, but it was at Owlient, a Ubisoft studio, where he truly gained his professional footing. Owlient specialized in free-to-play, browser-based management games, such as Howrse, a game centered on managing a virtual horse stable which originally started as a project on a French social network known as Skyblog. In 2014, Charlie stepped up to lead the studio alongside a colleague, taking over after the departure of the original founders to manage its 35 people, revamp a flagship game, and reconnect with a loyal community. “We were young, but very motivated,” he recalls with a smile.
His top priority was to listen to players, reinvest in the community experience, and modernize without losing the team’s essence. As the studio stabilized, it gradually shifted its focus toward mobile gaming. Riding the wave of free-to-play’s rise on smartphones, Owlient developed a mobile game under the Tom Clancy’s brand with ambitious goals. However, the launch was overshadowed by an unexpected controversy: a raised fist in a trailer, a symbol often associated with protest movements, was perceived as a subtle reference to Black Lives Matter. The media storm was fierce, especially in the United States. “We got caught up in a whirlwind,” Charlie Guillemot reflects. He took the criticism in stride and stood his ground. Yet, the incident, combined with the global pandemic and his own personal desire for a new challenge, ultimately prompted him to start a new professional chapter.
New horizons
With a few former colleagues, he founded Unagi, an independent studio focused on Web3. Their original goal was to create a fantasy soccer game which was both accessible and fun for everyone. The project, Ultimate Champion, combined a free-to-play model with seamless blockchain integration. The team successfully signed several clubs, including Arsenal. But the market evolved quickly. Factors such as Sorare’s rapid growth, exclusivity demands, and the gradual decline in crypto valuations made the landscape challenging. Despite their efforts, profitability proved difficult to achieve. The team decided to shift gears.
Unagi then launched a white-label version of the game for sports leagues, adopting a more flexible business model. This marked the start of their reinvention, but it was in a different area that the team truly hit its creative stride: digital collectables. Their new franchise, Persona, blends manga-inspired worlds, social platforms, and generative AI tools for content creation. The response was immediate: five million euros in revenue within 24 hours. For Charlie Guillemot, this confirmed a strong intuition that the next big stories would come from these still uncharted territories.
Back to the roots, new challenges
As Ubisoft’s transformation gained momentum, the opportunity to contribute in a meaningful way prompted Charlie Guillemot to take the next step. On March 31, he stepped down from his operational role at Unagi (though he remains on its board) to return to Ubisoft in a key position as chair of an internal transformation committee made up of ten members.
His mission is to rethink the organization by addressing two priorities: continuously improving the player experience and putting players back at the center of the creative process. “I wasn’t involved in developing the current structure, so I’m bringing a fresh perspective,” he explains.
He grounds his legitimacy in products. He’s run studios, launched games, and weathered crises. He understands the cycles, the teams, the tough trade-offs. And he’s a gamer himself. His go-to games? Dofus, World of Warcraft, League of Legends (still stuck in Silver…), and not to mention Assassin’s Creed, with a soft spot for Origins. He knows the company’s legacy from its franchises to its promises. But he’s also clear-eyed about the challenges ahead. Because the industry is changing. Fast.
Charlie Guillemot sees generative AI as a true game-changer: “Either you embrace the AI shift or you miss it and risk getting left behind.” For him, AI has the potential to profoundly reshape the way games are designed, produced, and iterated, extending far beyond the bounds of simple task automation.
He is also keeping a close eye on a worrying trend: waning engagement among younger audiences who are increasingly pulled towards fragmented content and social media. In his view, the future of gaming depends on tighter creative cycles and a renewed focus on detail. These are key ingredients in reinventing a kind of modern craftsmanship for the AI erathat is more creative, less formulaic, and more tailored to players.
His sources of inspiration span both gaming and tech. He points to Microsoft’s transformation under Satya Nadella, the precision of Blizzard’s production quality, and the way some studios manage to blend high standards with genuine fun. That is where he sets his own bar, focusing on consistent quality, team-minded leadership, and clear decision-making. “Honesty, integrity, meritocracy, and having fun at all times.”
Gearing up for the future
The transformation work Charlie Guillemot is leading at Ubisoft is part of a broader strategic shift toward openness. In March 2025, the company announced a joint venture with the Chinese giant Tencent valued at 4 billion euros, aimed at developing new franchises and expanding its presence in Asian markets. At the time of our interview, Charlie had just returned from a ten-day visit to Shenzhen, where he met with Tencent’s teams. “I spent ten days there to build mutual understanding, see how they operate, and explore what we can bring to each other.” The trip further cemented his viewpoint: “For the industry, there is no choice but to wake up and adapt.”
Returning to Ubisoft is both a demanding and exciting challenge for Charlie Guillemot. At a crucial moment for both the industry and the company, he is determined to blend tradition with innovation and show through his actions that Ubisoft still has the ability to surprise.
