Jim Ryan

Jim Ryan is the president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), a subsidiary of Sony. Ryan has worked with SIE since 1994, holding positions in both its American and European branches.

Ryan grew up in Kenton, Newcastle. He attended Royal Grammar School, graduating with A-Levels, before attending Warwick Business School, where he received a master of business administration in 1982. After graduating college, Ryan began working for Ford Motor Company. He also worked at Amstrad and Oracle Systems before joining Sony Interactive Entertainment.

Ryan began working for Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe (SIEE) in 1994, the year before the first PlayStation console launched. In his first year at the job, Ryan helped establish Sony's presence in Europe by finding offices and hiring staff.

My reason for joining the company back then was simple: I needed a job. Back then we weren’t called Sony Computer Entertainment, we were called Sony Electronic Publishing Ltd. and PlayStation was still clouded in secrecy. It was only after I had been working for a few months that the mist around this project called PlayStation started to clear and we started to realise that it was something quite special." -Jim Ryan

Since joining in 1994, Ryan has held several senior positions at Sony Interactive Entertainment in both its American and European branches. On August 16, 2011, Ryan was named president and CEO of SIEE. Prior to that, he was SIEE's executive vice president and co-chief operating officer (COO). In April 2016, Ryan was appointed head of global sales and marketing of SIE. On January 16, 2018, Ryan was named deputy president of SIE, effective immediately, while still retaining his positions as SIE's head of global sales and marketing and SIEE's president. On February 11, 2019, Ryan was named president and CEO of SIE, effective on April 1 of that year.

In December 2022, the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a complaint that sought to block Microsoft from acquiring Activision Blizzard and its major gaming franchises, such as Call of Duty, alleging that it would enable Microsoft to put its competitors at a marked disadvantage. A pre-trial hearing for the lawsuit was held on January 3, 2023. The court hearing began on June 22, 2023, and concluded on June 29.

On June 27, 2023, Ryan appeared in a seventy-minute prerecorded video deposition for the trial. In his deposition, he called the Xbox Game Pass "value destructive." He stated he did not believe Xbox exclusivity of certain games like Starfield was an anti-competitive practice, though he personally did not like the decision. Ryan also discussed concerns within Sony after Xbox announced its intention to acquire Activision Blizzard in early 2022. He stated that Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft Gaming, first reached out to him in May 2022 with a potential letter agreement and a list of video games that Xbox would commit to keeping on PlayStation.

Sony later sent a counterproposal to Spencer, whose email response––the contents of which were not shared in court––"set the alarm bells ringing" at Sony. One of Sony's biggest concerns regarding the acquisition was that Xbox would add Call of Duty to Xbox Game Pass, which would give players less of an incentive to access the title through PlayStation. As of July 2023, Activision has a standing agreement to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation until the end of 2025. On July 11, 2023, Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley ruled in favor of Microsoft, allowing the company to proceed with its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, and rejected the FTC's request for a preliminary injunction. As part of the ruling, Microsoft agreed to keep Call of Duty accessible on PlayStation for the next ten years. It also agreed to extend the game to the Nintendo Switch.

Ryan is a Variety500 Honoree of 2020 and 2021.