(Corrects paragraph 5 to say Ryan Cohen is chairman, not chief technology officer)
(Reuters) - GameStop Corp (NYSE:GME), the videogame retailer at the center of this year's "meme stock" trading frenzy, named Chief Executive Matt Furlong to its board on Monday, as the former Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) executive took formal charge of the company.
Furlong was named GameStop's CEO earlier this month, succeeding George Sherman who, the company said, also retired from the board.
Furlong oversaw a small but growing part of Amazon's business as the country head for Australia, a role his LinkedIn profile said he assumed in May 2019.
GameStop has become one of the hottest and most visible "meme stocks" followed on social media after its meteoric rise in a Reddit-driven retail short squeeze that caught Wall Street off guard in January.
Top shareholder Ryan Cohen, who was made Gamestop's chairman earlier this month, is driving the company's transition into e-commerce and has been responsible for the shakeup in its top management.
($1 = 1.3305 Australian dollars) (This story corrects paragraph 5 to say Ryan Cohen is chairman, not chief technology officer)