Chris Meledandri has joined Nintendo’s board of directors

The CEO of the film and animation studio Illumination, Chris Meledandri has officially joined Nintendo’s board of directors.

Meledandri was nominated for the position in May and then had been elected on Tuesday at the same time as Nintendo’s 81st annual meeting. He is well known as the producer of the successful movie, Despicable Me and the further Minion movies that have also joined the franchise. He is the first American westerner to have an outside director role with Nintendo.

Meledandri has the significant job of producing Illumination’s Super Mario movie, with his animation skills, there’s no doubt it’ll be something to look forward to. The movie is scheduled for release in 2022.

Shuntaro Furukawa Nintendo’s president mentioned that the company has been looking forward to creating animation content for its other franchises as well, but would need to be very dependent on finding the right people who deeply understand their work.

“We would like to nominate him as a new Outside Director with the expectation that he will appropriately supervise our companyʼs management from an objective perspective while providing valuable advice to our organization, based on his broad experience and insight gained as a leader in the field of entertainment,” Nintendo spoke of Meledandri.

They also mentioned that their ‘current group of Outside Directors consists of experts such as lawyers and accountants, and as members of the Audit and Supervisory Committee, they contribute to enriching the audit and supervisory system of Nintendo’s company through their broad insight into Nintendo’s corporate management.” and continued by explaining their faith in Meledandri’s work. “We believe that the addition of Mr. Meledandri will help to ensure our balance of diversity, including global perspective, knowledge, and experience, further enhancing the effectiveness of our Board of Directors.”