Rose Lappin has retired from Nintendo Australia after 16 years at the company, before it was even Nintendo Australia. Ms Lappin began working at Nintendo as a State Manager in 1994 (in the then Queensland branch), moving up to be the General Manager of Sales from 2000 to 2003 and the Director of Sales and Marketing from 2003 to 2007 and most recently as the Manager Director.

Rose has been involved with Nintendo before the formation of Nintendo Australia in 1994, with her working with Mattel who distributed Nintendo products here before that.

Speaking to ChannelNews.com.au Rose has told of her time at the company "I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at Nintendo Australia and have enjoyed working with everybody here. Nintendo Australia, and Nintendo globally, is made up of some fantastic people, and it has been an honour to be the Managing Director for almost three years,". says Rose. "Nintendo has been through many exciting changes during my time here, so it has been great to be a part of that. I love the gaming industry, and will definitely miss it,"

Rose has been with Nintendo through the hard times and now the good times but she says that in 2003, "many people had written Nintendo off, but we had to keep the business going. Now in 2010, we have new products, and business is going well, but we have to make sure that we don’t get complacent. I believe it is critical to have focus and drive the business at all times,". The GameCube launched in 2002 only sold 160,000 consoles in it’s lifetime, the Wii currently sites at 1.75 million. Rose was also the behind the feud with Harvey Norman over trading terms and the Wii. She denied the retailer access to the product after they tried to dictate trading terms. Eventually after the Wii became the hit it became they relented.

Rose’s postition will be taken by Mr Yuji Bando who is currently residing in Japan. We at Vooks wish Rose the very best with whatever she does next.

Photo: The Age