2 ms·

Don't know about the rest of the article, yet this part is insane sounding "reclusive chief executive, Kevin Rountree, of whom no public photographs exist, w

by araes 9mo ago

Don't know about the rest of the article, yet this part is insane sounding "reclusive chief executive, Kevin Rountree, of whom no public photographs exist, was named The Sunday Times “business person of the year". The company has a £6,000,000,000 market cap, and the CEO was named business person of the year by The Sunday Times for FTSE 100 leadership. Operates a global gaming business with 1000's of employees, 570 stores, 7,000 independent retailers, dozens of official events, and probably 100's to 1000's of sponsored events. Subreddit with over 1 million members, and an estimated 2.4 million+ monthly visitors to community sites. Fans known to be kind of obsessive. Nobody has ever photographed them. Ever. No talks, no conferences, no presentations, no public appearances, no Q&A's, no recorded video conferences, no awards acceptances, ... nothing. The CEO. Main executive management. Set company strategy. Managing operations. Serve as main link to the company. Drive company culture. Act as public face for the organization. Nothing. No pictures.

fancyfredbot 9mo ago
I hate to break this to you but the article wrong. There are pictures of him.
- pseudohadamard 9mo ago
  Yup. The very first Google hit, https://gamesworkshop.fandom.com/wiki/Kevin_D._Rountree https://gamesworkshop.fandom.com/wiki/Kevin_D._Rountree, has a photo of him. It's in the fscking wiki for Games Workshop, the company he runs. I have no idea how TFA couldn't find this.
  - defrost 9mo ago
    The Financial Times also asserts in 2024 to have no public domain image of him either: https://www.ft.com/content/369279f5-6f44-4248-a0f1-5347864eacf7 https://www.ft.com/content/369279f5-6f44-4248-a0f1-5347864ea... There's a possibility the Games Workshop wiki image is a generic stock business person place holder. The Australian science fiction writer Greg Egan strongly asserts no image of him appears on the internet ... and yet images are returned if you search his name and profession ... they are all different. See: https://www.gregegan.net/images/GregEgan.htm https://www.gregegan.net/images/GregEgan.htm
- pseudohadamard 9mo ago
  And here's a direct link to a photo of him: https://sw6.elbenwald.de/media/17/2b/b2/1707608303/E1079359_1.jpg https://sw6.elbenwald.de/media/17/2b/b2/1707608303/E1079359_...
- araes 9mo ago
  This was a large enough issue, there's a Sept 20th, 2025 Daily Mail, This is Money article titled "REVEALED: Boss behind Games Workshop's £5bn Warhammer boom" [1] Quoting: "this is the first picture of Kevin Rountree, the publicity-shy boss of the company behind Warhammer miniatures" "surfaced last week at the firm's Nottingham HQ where he was up for re-election at its annual meeting" "He isn't interested in publicity and is not on social media" [1] https://archive.is/r6t8C#selection-953.76-953.176 https://archive.is/r6t8C#selection-953.76-953.176 Anyways, the original point was, that it's crazy sounding that one of the largest companies would have a CEO that nobody's seen (apparently agreed upon by the Dispatch, and the Daily Mail, and the Financial Times [2]). The image on the Warhammer wiki is possibly the same (looks kind of different than the Daily Mail pic) Quoting Financial Times: "its chief executive, Kevin Rountree — formerly of the firm now known as PwC, and farmer-and-British-posho apparel provender Barbour — has virtually no profile (the Sunday Times, which recently listed Rountree as one of its businesspeople of the year, had to use a photo of an Ultramarines Space Marine instead). “He’s a real person — he’s not some kind of character out of Warhammer 40k,” Ashworth-Lord told us." To the point of openly requesting a picture: "Obviously, if someone does have a photo of big Kev or wants to let us know if he’s a slandered South Shields sand dancer or similar, we’re contactable in the usual ways." Credit to @defrost https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46563037 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46563037 for the FT link. [2] https://archive.is/2h16k#selection-37545.5-37587.1 https://archive.is/2h16k#selection-37545.5-37587.1
pseudohadamard 9mo ago
What the article was actually saying was "A check on LinkedIn and a quick Google search didn't turn up anything". It's like the 1970s sensational stories about paparazzi camping out on hotel balconies with massive telephoto lenses to get a photo of the Kiss members without their makeup, because absolutely nobody had any idea who they might really be.

by araes 9mo ago

fancyfredbot 9mo ago

I hate to break this to you but the article wrong. There are pictures of him.

pseudohadamard 9mo ago
Yup. The very first Google hit, https://gamesworkshop.fandom.com/wiki/Kevin_D._Rountree https://gamesworkshop.fandom.com/wiki/Kevin_D._Rountree, has a photo of him. It's in the fscking wiki for Games Workshop, the company he runs. I have no idea how TFA couldn't find this.
- defrost 9mo ago
  The Financial Times also asserts in 2024 to have no public domain image of him either: https://www.ft.com/content/369279f5-6f44-4248-a0f1-5347864eacf7 https://www.ft.com/content/369279f5-6f44-4248-a0f1-5347864ea... There's a possibility the Games Workshop wiki image is a generic stock business person place holder. The Australian science fiction writer Greg Egan strongly asserts no image of him appears on the internet ... and yet images are returned if you search his name and profession ... they are all different. See: https://www.gregegan.net/images/GregEgan.htm https://www.gregegan.net/images/GregEgan.htm
pseudohadamard 9mo ago
And here's a direct link to a photo of him: https://sw6.elbenwald.de/media/17/2b/b2/1707608303/E1079359_1.jpg https://sw6.elbenwald.de/media/17/2b/b2/1707608303/E1079359_...
araes 9mo ago
This was a large enough issue, there's a Sept 20th, 2025 Daily Mail, This is Money article titled "REVEALED: Boss behind Games Workshop's £5bn Warhammer boom" [1] Quoting: "this is the first picture of Kevin Rountree, the publicity-shy boss of the company behind Warhammer miniatures" "surfaced last week at the firm's Nottingham HQ where he was up for re-election at its annual meeting" "He isn't interested in publicity and is not on social media" [1] https://archive.is/r6t8C#selection-953.76-953.176 https://archive.is/r6t8C#selection-953.76-953.176 Anyways, the original point was, that it's crazy sounding that one of the largest companies would have a CEO that nobody's seen (apparently agreed upon by the Dispatch, and the Daily Mail, and the Financial Times [2]). The image on the Warhammer wiki is possibly the same (looks kind of different than the Daily Mail pic) Quoting Financial Times: "its chief executive, Kevin Rountree — formerly of the firm now known as PwC, and farmer-and-British-posho apparel provender Barbour — has virtually no profile (the Sunday Times, which recently listed Rountree as one of its businesspeople of the year, had to use a photo of an Ultramarines Space Marine instead). “He’s a real person — he’s not some kind of character out of Warhammer 40k,” Ashworth-Lord told us." To the point of openly requesting a picture: "Obviously, if someone does have a photo of big Kev or wants to let us know if he’s a slandered South Shields sand dancer or similar, we’re contactable in the usual ways." Credit to @defrost https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46563037 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46563037 for the FT link. [2] https://archive.is/2h16k#selection-37545.5-37587.1 https://archive.is/2h16k#selection-37545.5-37587.1

pseudohadamard 9mo ago

What the article was actually saying was "A check on LinkedIn and a quick Google search didn't turn up anything". It's like the 1970s sensational stories about paparazzi camping out on hotel balconies with massive telephoto lenses to get a photo of the Kiss members without their makeup, because absolutely nobody had any idea who they might really be.