Thomas Hopper
Senior Producer at Something Wicked Games- Claim this Profile
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English Native or bilingual proficiency
Topline Score
Bio
Jeff Gardiner
Thomas is an astoundingly professional producer who is unflappable under pressure, an excellent communicator, and a consummate professional. I would not hesitate to give him my highest recommendation or to work with him again.
Camden Eagar
Over my 8 year career at Blizzard I worked off and in with Thomas. We were largely on different teams for most of it, but interacted on occasion. During that time he continued to excel in his career path. During my last three years at Blizzard, both as a Project Manager and as a Live Ops Producer, I began to work with Thomas on a day-to-day basis. He served as stakeholder, product owner, sponsor, and peer to several projects and initiatives that worked on. Through those interactions it was clear why Thomas had such a meteoric rise in his career. Thomas has uncontested expertise and strategic vision for global customer service operations. Specifically the plan he held for personnel management, scheduling, and queue management allowed for an excellent balance between employee quality of life and the needs of the business and players. Additionally his ideas for innovative queue management technology, agent KPIs, queue SLAs, and business operational metrics set new standards in how customer support centers can be run. All of this while directly managing three strategic departments/teams. I genuinely do not intend to sound hyperbolic, but one of the primary reasons Blizzard Customer Support was so efficiently operated and well regarded is directly because of Thomas Hopper.
Jeff Gardiner
Thomas is an astoundingly professional producer who is unflappable under pressure, an excellent communicator, and a consummate professional. I would not hesitate to give him my highest recommendation or to work with him again.
Camden Eagar
Over my 8 year career at Blizzard I worked off and in with Thomas. We were largely on different teams for most of it, but interacted on occasion. During that time he continued to excel in his career path. During my last three years at Blizzard, both as a Project Manager and as a Live Ops Producer, I began to work with Thomas on a day-to-day basis. He served as stakeholder, product owner, sponsor, and peer to several projects and initiatives that worked on. Through those interactions it was clear why Thomas had such a meteoric rise in his career. Thomas has uncontested expertise and strategic vision for global customer service operations. Specifically the plan he held for personnel management, scheduling, and queue management allowed for an excellent balance between employee quality of life and the needs of the business and players. Additionally his ideas for innovative queue management technology, agent KPIs, queue SLAs, and business operational metrics set new standards in how customer support centers can be run. All of this while directly managing three strategic departments/teams. I genuinely do not intend to sound hyperbolic, but one of the primary reasons Blizzard Customer Support was so efficiently operated and well regarded is directly because of Thomas Hopper.
Jeff Gardiner
Thomas is an astoundingly professional producer who is unflappable under pressure, an excellent communicator, and a consummate professional. I would not hesitate to give him my highest recommendation or to work with him again.
Camden Eagar
Over my 8 year career at Blizzard I worked off and in with Thomas. We were largely on different teams for most of it, but interacted on occasion. During that time he continued to excel in his career path. During my last three years at Blizzard, both as a Project Manager and as a Live Ops Producer, I began to work with Thomas on a day-to-day basis. He served as stakeholder, product owner, sponsor, and peer to several projects and initiatives that worked on. Through those interactions it was clear why Thomas had such a meteoric rise in his career. Thomas has uncontested expertise and strategic vision for global customer service operations. Specifically the plan he held for personnel management, scheduling, and queue management allowed for an excellent balance between employee quality of life and the needs of the business and players. Additionally his ideas for innovative queue management technology, agent KPIs, queue SLAs, and business operational metrics set new standards in how customer support centers can be run. All of this while directly managing three strategic departments/teams. I genuinely do not intend to sound hyperbolic, but one of the primary reasons Blizzard Customer Support was so efficiently operated and well regarded is directly because of Thomas Hopper.
Jeff Gardiner
Thomas is an astoundingly professional producer who is unflappable under pressure, an excellent communicator, and a consummate professional. I would not hesitate to give him my highest recommendation or to work with him again.
Camden Eagar
Over my 8 year career at Blizzard I worked off and in with Thomas. We were largely on different teams for most of it, but interacted on occasion. During that time he continued to excel in his career path. During my last three years at Blizzard, both as a Project Manager and as a Live Ops Producer, I began to work with Thomas on a day-to-day basis. He served as stakeholder, product owner, sponsor, and peer to several projects and initiatives that worked on. Through those interactions it was clear why Thomas had such a meteoric rise in his career. Thomas has uncontested expertise and strategic vision for global customer service operations. Specifically the plan he held for personnel management, scheduling, and queue management allowed for an excellent balance between employee quality of life and the needs of the business and players. Additionally his ideas for innovative queue management technology, agent KPIs, queue SLAs, and business operational metrics set new standards in how customer support centers can be run. All of this while directly managing three strategic departments/teams. I genuinely do not intend to sound hyperbolic, but one of the primary reasons Blizzard Customer Support was so efficiently operated and well regarded is directly because of Thomas Hopper.
Credentials
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Professional Scrum Master™ I (PSM I)
Scrum.orgSep, 2022- Oct, 2024 -
Certified Scrum Master
Scrum AllianceOct, 2014- Oct, 2024
Experience
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Something Wicked Games
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United States
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Computer Games
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1 - 100 Employee
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Senior Producer
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Dec 2022 - Present
Producer for the programming team on Wyrdsong. Producer for the programming team on Wyrdsong.
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Jagex
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United Kingdom
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Computer Games
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400 - 500 Employee
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Senior Producer
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Jun 2021 - Oct 2022
Publishing Production lead on Space Punks & Jagex Business Owner for Melvor Idle. -Relationship builder/maintainer of development partnerships with game development studios -Solver of game development challenges. -Was responsible for P&L for two Jagex Publishing Partnership titles. -Worked directly with third party studios on game development best practices, live service preparations, and hardening of core systems in order to bring games to market. -Oversaw roadmap and risk mitigation for future development and releases. -Worked with multiple third party providers for voice/text chat, security, external QA, hosting, and gaming platforms. -Worked closely with internal project managers on release readiness across multiple platforms and titles. -Oversaw production on console go-to-market. -Involved in publishing contract negotiations, revisions, and milestone completion. -Oversaw and approved financial statements and royalty statements for development partners. -Worked directly with development studio partners from Krakow, Poland and Perth, Australia. Credited on the following titles: -Space Punks: Early Access (2021) -Space Punks: Open Beta (2022) Supported the following releases: -Melvor Idle (2021) -Melvor Idle: Throne of the Herald (2022) Show less
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Bethesda Game Studios
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United States
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Computer Games
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300 - 400 Employee
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Lead Live Producer
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Jan 2020 - Apr 2021
I worked with really smart people who do awesome things on Fallout 76.-Managed the Live Operations team for Fallout 76 which consisted of producers, QA managers, and QA engineers.-Production Lead responsible for readiness and the live deploy of Wastelanders and Steel Dawn. -Responsible for Live deploy of Fallout 76 on Steam and MSStore Game Pass. -Ensured studio alignment on all go-live procedures for major patches, launches, scheduled in-game events, and public initiatives. -Production Lead responsible for security strike team.-Production Lead responsible for the Public Test Server.-Responsible for briefing Executive Producer and project leads multiple times per week on status of the live game. -Responsible for decisions around hotfix planning and execution along with studio lead engineers. -Provided mentoring and guidance for new managers and production personnel. Titles/DLC Shipped:-Fallout 76: Wastelanders (2020)-Fallout 76: Steel Dawn (2020)Titles/DLC Supported:-Fallout 76 (2018)-Fallout 76: Locked & Loaded (2021) Show less
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Live Producer
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Apr 2019 - Jan 2020
Live Producer for Fallout 76.-Partnered with all game development disciplines and QA on prioritization and resolution of live game service issues-Scheduled and executed major game changes in a live environment-Responsible for assessing, quantifying, and reporting on live game service issues-Responsible for deploying patches to multiple gaming platforms such as PC, PlayStation, Steam, XBox, and Microsoft PC Game Pass-Production point of contact for major live game initiatives such as free-to-play weekends, bonus XP weekends, and other special in-game events across all platforms-Responsible for live readiness and preparations for future releases and major game initiatives-Experience curating and updating achievements and trophies on Xbox, Steam, and PlayStation platforms for base game and expansion content-Live service monitoring of standard KPIs such as service outages, player concurrency, server performance, DAU, MAU, etc-Partnered with community and customer service teams on external player communications-Experienced at deploying content releases, patches, and new products to live environments-Production on-call for live service issues-Conducted on-boarding and training of new production staff-Partnered with the monetization team on weekly micro-transaction updates and deploys-Expert level with typical production software such as Confluence, Jira, Slack, bug management databases, Perforce, etc.-Expert level with process and workflow creation, checklists, and documentation Show less
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Blizzard Entertainment
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United States
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Entertainment Providers
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700 & Above Employee
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Group Manager of Live Operations
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Sep 2014 - Dec 2018
-Oversaw all all live operations for Blizzard Entertainment CS for the Americas region-Oversaw the Workforce Management team responsible for global staffing-Program Manager for Voice of the Player-Program Manager for Internal Affairs-Overseeing manager for an organization of 24 people consisting of 2 managers, 4 senior analysts, and 18 individual contributors-Oversaw regional capacity planning (peak of over 1k agents in 2010 to 250 agents in 2018)-Oversaw staffing and resource allocation for all temporary contract staff ran via insourcing model to scale up/down to support major product launches-Chief architect of the customer service strategic queue management plan for all product launches from Jan 2016 to Dec 2018, most notably World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth, where we achieved the fastest service level recovery following a WoW release in the company's history-International travel experience and a proven track record of working on complex projects and initiatives globally with colleagues in France, Ireland, Taiwan, Korea, and China-Increased team efficiency while remaining headcount conscious through times of tremendous growth and incremental staff decreases through attrition-Focused heavily on career growth of direct reports resulting in numerous staff promotions to other teams throughout the companyCredited on the following game launches:-World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor (2014)-Heroes of the Storm (2015)-StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void (2015)-Overwatch (2016)-World of Warcraft: Legion (2016)-World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth (2018)Supported the following external game launches:-Destiny 2 (2017)-Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 (2018) Show less
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Team Manager of Live Operations
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Nov 2011 - Sep 2014
Led a team of 8 live ops & 3 workforce analysts across two support locations in Austin, TX & Irvine, CA. Was responsible for all contact center operations & workforce management for the North American customer service locations at Blizzard Entertainment supporting phone, webchat, in-game, & ticketing contact channels for all Blizzard products in 3 languages (English, Spanish, & Portuguese).Duties Included:-Led the strategic vision for regional queue management and capacity planning strategy -Strategic planning related to company events, product/game launches, queue management, and resource allocation-Execution to forecasting plan assuming 92+% forecast accuracy in a 70-80% utilization environment-Liaised with front line team managers and department managers on service level performance and execution to strategy as defined by the workforce team-Compiled and led director and executive reporting on business performance metrics such as AHT, service level, CSAT, time based FCR, etc-Liaised with peers in Europe, Taiwan, and Korea on global alignment of best practices and process-Managed projects within team aimed at improving contact center performance and processCredited on the following game launches:-Diablo III (2012)-World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria (2012)-StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm (2013)-Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft (2014)-Diablo III: Reaper of Souls (2014) Show less
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Live Operations & Workforce Analyst
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Jul 2009 - Nov 2011
-Key contributor for the creation & implementation of the customer service live operations team (service level coordinators and real time contact volume analysis)-Performed contact channel scheduling in adherence with workforce management utilization goals-Executed queue management strategy in adherence to the regional capacity plan-Managed customer support queue and contact volume impact for two Blizzard game launches-Created interview questions, core competency grading systems, & conducted interviews for multiple rounds of internal hiring-Scheduled front line game masters using IEX workforce management scheduling software -Acted in product owner role for multiple internal tools & reports utilizing agile project management methodologies with an emphasis in scrum-Performed large-scale department-wide scheduling, event scheduling, & schedule efficiency analysis-Was a member of the site-wide crisis management team (CPR certified) -Mitigated the negative effects on customer service operations during technical “downtimes”-Led daily business performance review meetings on a recurring basis covering operational & organizational topics with multiple levels of senior and executive leadership-Vast working knowledge of Cisco ACD phone systems, & all associated reporting-Coached & mentored peers within the teamCredited on the following game launches:-StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty (2010)-World of Warcraft: Cataclysm (2010) Show less
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Senior Account and Technical Services Representative
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Oct 2008 - Jul 2009
-Coached and mentored a team of 15 phone representatives-Compiled & reported all weekly KPIs-Led performance & metric evaluations for team members -Liaised with various departments regarding tool outages & fraud investigations-Performed supervisor & retention callbacks-Created certification tests for internal employee tier placementSupported the product launch for World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (2008).
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Customer Service Representative
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Mar 2008 - Oct 2008
-Answered inbound calls and emails in support of products and services for Blizzard EntertainmentSupported World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade (2007)
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American Bank of Commerce
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Banking
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1 - 100 Employee
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Associate Credit Analyst
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Sep 2006 - Aug 2007
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Education
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2003 - 2007
Lubbock Christian University
B.A., Business Administration -
1999 - 2003
Midland Christian High School
High School Diploma, 4.0 GPA
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