Zynga Reshuffles As CFO David Wehner Leaves For Facebook

The struggling San Francisco-based game developer best known for its popular Facebook (Nasdag: FB) and mobile games like “FarmVille” and “Words with Friends” announced on the company blog late Tuesday that Dave Wehner, its chief financial officer, had resigned and accepted a “senior position” at Facebook.

Since Zynga first took a nose-dive in the stock market last July following a weak second-quarter earnings report, the company has a number of high-profile executives and game-industry veterans including John Schappert, its chief operating officer, and Jeff Karp, chief marketing officer.

In the latest reorganization, Zynga founder and CEO Mark Pincus said that David Ko, formerly chief mobile officer, is now chief operations officer, and Barry Cottle, who was head of business development, is the company’s new chief revenue officer. Steven Chiang is named president of games – he was previously overseeing titles including Bubble Safari and FarmVille2 –Mark Vranesh, who was previously chief accounting officer, is replacing Wehner as the new CFO.

In his message to employees, Pincus said, “We are positioning ourselves for long-term growth and I’m confident that we have the breadth and depth of management talent to deliver on our mission of connecting the world through games.”

Pincus added that Zynga was “reaffirming” its adjusted financial outlook for 2012 announced late last month in a weak third quarter earnings report.

Zynga has been forced to reshuffle its internal management and refocus its corporate strategy constantly since July, with its share price dropping more than 40 percent since its all-time high last summer. Revenues from Zynga games on Facebook fell precipitously due to changes made to the popular social network, a dilemma Zynga has continued to promise it will rectify through a renewed focus on mobile gaming and online gambling.

“With some of our recent game success and the great work that’s being done to move with our players to mobile, we’re making progress,” Pincus said. “We still have a lot of work to do, but it’s been great to see so many of you step forward to put us on the move again.”

Zynga shares jumped nearly 2 percent to $2.15 during Wednesday morning trading following a jump in after-hours trading Tuesday. The stock is still down nearly 80 percent from its $10 listing price less than a year ago.