Zynga Exec Jumps Ship, Lands CEO Role At eHarmony

Jeremy Verba, a GM at social gaming company Zynga, has been appointed CEO and board member of online dating juggernaut eHarmony. At Zynga, Verba served as founding general manager of Treasure Isle, one of its top Facebook games. According to his LinkedIn profile, he was a member of Zynga’s executive staff since joining the company in December 2009.

Prior to Zynga, Verba served as president and CEO for social networking service Piczo, and before that held a number of leadership roles at companies like AOL, E! Online and CNET.

The timing of his departure at Zynga is somewhat peculiar, as the company recently filed to go public. According to the filing, Zynga aims to raise as much as $1 billion.

I’ve asked Zynga for an official comment on Verba’s decision to quit, and will update when I hear back.

(Update: Zynga got back to me but declined to comment).

EHarmony, meanwhile, says it has seen mobile app downloads surpass the one million mark in 2011, and continues to see growth all around the world.

The online ‘matchmaking’ service provider, which was founded back in 2000, now operates in 16 countries including Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and Brazil.

The company’s former CEO, Gregory Waldorf, resigned earlier this year after running eHarmony for nearly five years – he later joined VC firm Accel Partners. He was replaced on an interim basis by Greg Steiner, the company’s president and COO.

(Image via Verba’s Twitter account).