Before joining Zynga in August 2011, Karp was an executive vice president at Electronic Arts. Karp was reportedly recruited to join Zynga by another former EA executive, John Schappert. Schappert resigned from his position as COO last month.
Karp follows a string of other high-profile exits. In August, Chief Creative Officer Mike Verdu left the company to found his own firm. As AllThingsD reported, Verdu is starting his own game company and Zynga will act as an investor. Zynga lost two vice presidents at the end of August. The general manager behind CityVille also left the company last month.
In addition to Karp, VentureBeat reports that Allan Leinwand, CTO of infrastructure, has left the company to become CTO of ServiceNow. In July, Zynga's poor second quarter earnings caused the stock to drop 40%. Zynga's stock is now under $3 a share. The social gaming juggernaut is struggling with a number of different issues. Thanks to algorithm changes at Facebook, the company is getting less exposure from its biggest social driver. The company is also having a hard time keeping players engaged in its games. Like Facebook, Zynga is also struggling to find ways to monetize its games on mobile devices.
Still, it can't help company morale -- not to mention the ability to stage a turnaround -- when so many executives are heading to the exit.
Zynga said in a statement: "Jeff Karp is leaving Zynga, and the groups in his organization have been realigned under appropriate existing divisions. Our marketing and revenue teams have always been industry leaders, and as we continue our transition toward mobile and multiplatform game creation and distribution, their continued execution will be key to our future success. We are grateful to Jeff for his contributions over the last year and wish him well in his future endeavors."