Paul Cairns

Paul serves as the Chief Business Officer at Electronic Arts. He leads the teams responsible for EA’s long-term commercial arrangements and strategic partnerships. These include sports, racing, entertainment IP, talent, and music licensing. Paul also oversees EA’s relationships with first-party platform partners, including the world’s major devices, subscriptions, and networks on which games are played. In addition, Paul heads corporate development including M&A, technology licensing, third-party game development, and supports EA’s external publishing of partner titles, and business development in Asia.

Paul first joined EA in 2000 from Harbottle & Lewis in London, one of the UK’s leading media and entertainment law firms. In 2008 he returned to Harbottle & Lewis as a partner where he continued to represent EA as outside counsel. In 2012, he relocated with his family to Seattle, WA, and ran business development for Microsoft’s first-party studios before re-joining EA three years later to lead the Business Affairs & Development function.