Former PlayStation and Xbox Talent Lead Fiona Cherbak Launches Rocket Game Talent

Fiona Cherbak, who served as Talent Acquisition Lead at Sony PlayStation Worldwide Studios and later as Lead Talent Program Manager at Xbox Game Studios, launched Rocket Game Talent on March 3, 2026, positioning the firm as a boutique fractional talent operations partner that brings AAA hiring practices to small studios and startups. The company’s press release bills the offering as “bridging the gap between AAA hiring excellence and indie studio reality” and promises “delivering Fortune 500 recruiting expertise without the cost of a full-time hire.”

Cherbak’s résumé cited in launch materials and industry coverage lists concrete hiring achievements: she helped hire more than 250 developers at Santa Monica Studio during the God of War staffing effort and worked on staffing and shipping Bioshock: Infinite for Irrational Games. Coverage also notes hands-on experience with Turn 10 Studios and first-party franchises at Xbox such as Gears of War, Halo, and Forza, credentials the new firm uses to market its services to studios without in-house recruiting teams.

Rocket Game Talent’s service list in the founder’s launch statements and subsequent coverage includes full-cycle recruiting, talent operations infrastructure, hiring process design, interview training, employer branding and engagement programs, university and bootcamp partnerships, diversity recruiting initiatives, and industry event representation. Company materials emphasize a fractional delivery model - part-time or project-based talent leadership rather than an expensive full-time hire - and the launch copy frames that model as a way for a 50-person studio to compete for senior candidates despite lacking Xbox-level hiring budgets. Cherbak’s quoted lines in the launch materials include: “Most game talent specialists specialise in either AAA or indie. I've carefully mastered both,” and “I understand why your 50-person studio can't hire like Xbox does – and I know how to position you to win top talent anyway. I understand both $200M blockbusters and bootstrapped startups – and that range is your advantage.”

The press release includes two endorsements presented as testimonials: a principal tech art director at Turn 10 Studios said, “As a hiring manager for well over 15 years, I've worked with dozens of recruiters, but Fiona is in a class of her own,” and a senior leader at Santa Monica Studio said, “Fiona is the best talent acquisition partner I've worked with in my 15+ year career. She's tenacious, thoughtful, and deeply committed to finding the right people.” Those testimonials are packaged in the company’s March 3 launch materials.

Not all early coverage aligns on every detail. The company name is consistently Rocket Game Talent, but some industry write-ups use the spelling “Fiona Cherback” while others use “Fiona Cherbak.” Reporting also differs on Cherbak’s Xbox remit: the press release and some outlets describe oversight of 14 first-party teams, while other pieces state she oversaw talent operations across 23 first-party studios. The launch materials and coverage make clear the firm’s initial market focus: small studios, indie teams and startups that lack brand recognition or established recruiting processes.

With the March 3, 2026 launch, Rocket Game Talent enters a crowded but specialized market for recruiting services in games, offering fractional talent operations and “world-class hiring expertise” aimed at studios that need AAA-level hiring systems without a full-time recruiter. Cherbak’s stated pitch is to turn that range of experience into a competitive advantage for studios across the budget spectrum.