Around the house

Last week, Rovio chief legal officer Kati Levoranta became the latest in-house lawyer to be promoted to the helm of a company as CEO. She will assume the role at the Finnish game developer most famous for its highly popular and addictive 'Angry Birds' mobile game from January. Ms Levoranta will succeed incumbent CEO Pekka Rantala, who is stepping down after a trying twelve month period for Rovio, including an internal restructure that put 200 jobs on the chopping block this October.

Meanwhile, Arizona-based identity theft protection services company LifeLock has announced that Sharon Sergev will join its team as executive vice president, general counsel and secretary from 11 January. Ms Sergev joins LifeLock after three years in a similar role at Elo Touch Solutions, a leading touchscreen-based technology provider. 

Also stateside, Alyssa H. Fontaine has been named the new executive vice president and general counsel of New York-based financial services group Tompkins Financial Corporation. Ms Fontaine is currently a partner at law firm Harris Beach, where she has worked on several projects for Tompkins over the past few years as part of the firm's Corporate Practice Group. She will replace outgoing GC Ed Hooks, also of Harris Beach, who is retiring at the end of this year after 23 years in the role.

A large scale leadership reshuffle at Osaka-based Toyo Tire & Rubber Company will see current Toyo Tire USA director, senior vice president and general counsel Iori Suzuki shifted to the role of president for Toyo Tire Holdings of Americas. Mr Suzuki's appointment comes as current president Tomoshige 'Tomo' Mizutani steps up as the new chairman and chief executive officer of both Toyo Tire USA and Nitto Tire USA from 1 January. The restructure, announced on 11 December, includes some three dozen executive appointments.

Finally, global chemical conglomerate W.R. Grace & Company has announced that John 'Jack' Kapples will assume the position of vice president and general counsel of GCP Applied Technologies when Grace's Construction Products unit is spun-off from its Darex Packaging Technologies business early next year. Overseeing GCP's legal department, Mr Kapples will be responsible for all aspects of corporate governance, compliance, M&A, commercial transactions, intellectual property and government relations for the new public company. He will report directly to GCP's designated president and CEO Gregory E. Poling.