Tom Kalinske

From Sega Retro

Tom Kalinske.jpg
Tom Kalinske
Place of birth: Iowa, United States
Date of birth: 1944-07-17 (age 80)
Employment history:
Matchbox
Role(s): Executive
Education: University of Wisconsin (Batchelor of Business Science), University of Arizona (Master of Business Administration), Harvard Business School (Strategic Management)
Twitter: @ThomasTkalinske

This teeny-tiny article needs some work. You can help us by expanding it.

Thomas "Tom" Kalinske is an American businessman who served as President and CEO of Sega of America from October 1990[1] to September 1996.[2] The face of the company for much of its exponential growth, Kalinske oversaw the company’s battle with Nintendo’s monopoly on the home video game market. His aggressive marketing decisions, such as competitive price drops and the famous Sega Scream campaign, are regarded as key elements in the continuing success of the Sega Genesis.

Career

Background

Sega of America

“ When I agreed to join [Sega of America], I had a conversation with the CEO Hayao Nakayama in Japan and said, “Look, I know how you guys like to run things, but if I'm going to become the CEO of Sega of America, I have to be able to make the decisions. And you can't interfere too much,” and he agreed. So initially my relationship with Sega of Japan was fantastic. I mean in 90, 91, 92, 93, even though I know they didn't agree with me being very aggressive and advertising and making fun of Nintendo… Which is something you just don't do in Japan. You don't make fun of a competitor. They let me do it.


And they let me enlarge the operation at Sega of America and hire a lot of developers and R&D people, and we were doing a lot of product on our own. Before I joined, most of all the product came from Japan. It was translations of arcade games that Sega of Japan did in Japan. Then after I joined, we were doing a lot of sports titles, a lot of American licenses with… Disney and Universal Studios and other licenses. Garfield, I mean things like that. And also, we obviously had to hire a lot of people to do all that.


And initially, they let me do all of that. And even though I know [they] disagreed on a lot of things, but eventually, that relationship changed. And I must tell you, I didn't really understand why it changed. Because we were wildly successful in the US. And so it was kind of hard to figure out.

„

— Tom Kalinske[3]


Approached by Hayao Nakayama to serve as President of Sega of America, Kalinske succeeded Michael Katz in leading the company’s American branch.

Sega Foundation

Main article: Sega Foundation.


“ In those days businesses, American businesses, just did not even mention the word AIDS. I mean, it was literally a taboo subject. And I know it sounds strange today but it was. And so a lot of people were critical of our support of the Pediatric AIDS Foundation. „

— Tom Kalinske[3]


Kalinske played a crucial role in the creation of the Sega Foundation. Inspired by both his past involvement with the Mattel Children's Foundation and his personal interest in philanthropy through education, Kalinske established the Sega Foundation in December 1992.[4][5] Headquartered out of the company's Redwood Shores offices and headed by executive Trizia Hill Magagnini, Kalinske redirected a portion of Sega of America's operating budget directly into charitable grants, scholarships, and projects.[3]

Through his personal experiences with Anique Kasper, a young girl and family friend stricken with pediatric AIDS, Kalinske also successfully backed Sega's endorsement of AIDS in children (a then-taboo subject), resulting in Sega of America being one of the first major technology corporations to publicly support the topic. Both he and Anique personally attended the Sega-sponsored KIIS and Unite charity concert, and after her passing was instrumental to ensuring her story was not left unheard.[3]

Departure from Sega

After losing confidence in Sega of Japan’s support during the 32-bit era, Kalinske departed Sega of America on September 30, 1996[2] for a job at the education-focused LeapFrog company. The company went nearly two years without hiring a new President, with the role only being filled when Bernie Stolar was promoted in March 1998.

Following his departure from the video game and tech industries, Kalinske began playing a more direct role in his philanthropic efforts. He has served on both the National Foundation for the Improvement of Education, a Washington, D.C.-based education foundation, as well as the education-focused Milken Family Foundation. He remains active with the Teach the World Foundation, an organization which teaches children in impoverished areas to read and write in both their local languages and English and mathematics. Most active in Southwest Asia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Rohingya, Mali, and Northern Africa, the charitable organization uses electronic tablets at the core of their ability to educate, with Kalinske citing his experience with both the Sega Pico and LeapFrog as influencing his current philanthropic work.[3]

Quotes

“ I think I was most proud of the fact that when I went to Sega, a lot of Wall Street analysts and a lot of my friends said, “What the hell are you doing? Trying to compete with Nintendo? Nintendo has 95% of the market share and Sega has 1% or something at the time. You're going to get killed by Nintendo. They're a giant and you're a little pimple. You're crazy to do this.” And so I guess [what] I'm most proud of is after three years we passed Nintendo at share of market.


The other thing I’m really proud of is, I had a great team of people, my goodness. I mean Joe Miller, Al Nilsen, Michealene Cristini Risley, Diane Fornasier, Rich Burns, just great people. Paul Rioux, I dragged from Mattel over. So I really had a great, great team of people that I'm very, very proud of.

„

— Tom Kalinske[3]


Production history

Games

Videos

Music

Interviews

Magazine articles

Main article: Tom Kalinske/Magazine articles.

Photographs

Main article: Photos of Tom Kalinske

External links

References

  1. ↑ Electronic Games (1992-1995), "January 1993" (US; 1992-12-10), page 55
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Interview: Tom Kalinske (2006-07-11) by Sega-16
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Interview: Tom Kalinske (2025-02-20) by Alexander Rojas
  4. ↑ http://www.sega.com/central/foundation/ (Wayback Machine: 1998-02-02 03:35)
  5. ↑ http://www.nonprofitfacts.com/CA/Sega-Youth-Education-Health-Foundation-Charitable-Tr-032392-Rioux-Paul-Ttee.html
  6. ↑ File:Sonic the Hedgehog 2 MD credits.pdf
  7. ↑ File:Aladdin MD credits.pdf
  8. ↑ File:Sonic the Hedgehog 3 MD credits.pdf
  9. ↑ File:Midnightraiders mcd us manual.pdf, page 16
  10. ↑ File:Sonic & Knuckles MD credits.pdf
  11. ↑ File:NiGHTS into Dreams Saturn credits.pdf
  12. ↑ File:ESoT CD US Booklet.pdf, page 5


Presidents of Sega Enterprises USA
Gene Lipkin (1985-1986) | Ned DeWitt | Tom Petit (1988-1994) | Alan Stone (1994-1996) | Howell Ivy (1996-2004) |

Co-president: David Rosen (1985-1996)

Presidents of Sega of America
Bruce Lowry (1986-1989) | | Michael Katz (1989-1990) | Tom Kalinske (1990-1996) | Bernie Stolar (1998-1999) | Peter Moore (1999-2003) | Hideaki Irie (2003-2005) | Simon Jeffery (2005-2009) | Mike Hayes (2009-2012) | John Cheng (2012-2018) | Ian Curran (2018)

Co-president: David Rosen (1986-1996)

Retrieved from "https://segaretro.org/index.php?title=Tom_Kalinske&oldid=1062865"