If you’ve been hanging around Fitocracy lately, you may have seen a certain character named “Engers” hanging around. You are very likely to see him participating in long comment threads and giving all his props to everyone he sees (seriously, he’s very indiscriminate with his props-giving, so don’t feel too special if you receive one from him).

In what may be perhaps the worst kept secret of all time, we are thrilled to announce that Engers, better known by his real name, Jared, will be joining the Fitocracy team as our new Chief Product Officer. As CPO, he will be owning the user experience and interface as we move toward building out our mobile apps and version 2.0 of Fitocracy.

His career spans 19 years building diverse digital brands that serve billions of page views a month: National Geographic, WebMD, Sports Illustrated, Time, Conde Nast, NBC, Apple, Google, MTV, and Alexander McQueen. He also happens to have a killer accent, went to the same school as Shakespeare (but wasn’t in the same grade), and has an interesting super power.

We first met Jared through a mutual friend last fall. Back then, we knew him only to be a silver-haired “designery dude” who happened to really really dig Fitocracy. Once we got to know him, we decided we could really use his expertise so we brought him on as an advisor. Plus, that English charm was just too much.

We were not only blown away by his talent and advice, but he also truly and deeply understands the vision behind Fitocracy and how to bridge the gap between the dream and reality. Not to mention, the entire team clicked incredibly well with him over our absurd group chats, which counted for a lot :)

Jared will officially start with the Fitocracy team on February 13th. He will be greeted with lots of bro-hugs and squeals. Please send him a warm welcome at his profile page!

P.S. If you look up Jared’s last name, we promise we are not playing some elaborate joke on you.