Groupon hires a Zynga executive

Groupon Inc. has hired Curtis Lee, an executive at Zynga Inc., the developer of games such as Farmville that consumers play on Facebook and other online social networks. He will assume the newly created role of vice president of consumer products.

The daily deal operator would not comment on what Lee’s areas of responsibilities, but given his title it is likely to include oversight of Groupon Goods, a flash-sale site where consumers can buy a small number of products from a mix of national and local merchants for a set period of time. Since its September launch, Groupon Goods has been one of the daily deal operator’s fastest-growing channels, according to several reports.

Lee had worked at Zynga since 2009. Among Lee’s past positions at Zynga, was as director of product management at the social gaming provider’s Austin, TX, studio and director of product for Mafia Wars. Prior to Zynga, he worked at YouTube’s consumer products division.

Since going public in November, Groupon has been on a hiring and acquisition binge. Just last month the daily deal operator hired Paul Taaffe, former chairman and CEO of public relations firm Hill & Knowlton, as its vice president, global communications, and acquired Adku, a Palo Alto, CA-based company that focused on digging deeply into data to offer online consumers more relevant deals.

Earlier this year it bought social shopping site Mertado.com, which enables consumers to find and buy products through social networks such as Facebook, and in December, it bought social media technology company Campfire Labs, which had yet to officially launch.