ngmoco:), the U.S.-based subsidiary of Japanese mobile-social gaming giant DeNA, hired a new chief operating officer as it plans to pick up hundreds of games for its newly launched Mobage platform.

Joanna Drake Earl was the chief strategy officer and COO at Current TV, the cable station Al Gore and Joel Hyatt co-founded. Before that, she was a vice president of content at MOXI where she worked on deals to bring music, gaming and video apps to the company’s HD DVR products.

The hire comes as ngmoco:)’s parent DeNA tries to expand its mobile gaming empire outside of Japan. DeNA is both a developer and a platform provider for mobile games in Japan where it supports more than 1,000 games and makes titles like Kaito Royale. The company said in its earnings call last month that it expects overseas sales to come in at 1 billion yen ($13.1 million) and a net loss of 1.1 billion yen ($14.4 million) in the quarter ending in September.

It bought ngmoco:) at the end of last year for up to $403 million in an attempt to try and expand the model it pioneered in Japan to Western markets. Some of the fruits of that partnership started to emerge last month when the two launched the global Mobage platform for Android.

With 50.9 billion yen ($665 million) in cash on its balance sheet at the end of last quarter, DeNA has deep pockets and is willing to either provide the financial incentives or forgo revenue share in order to gain distribution. It will also need to sign numerous partnerships with carriers and handset manufacturers to make sure it comes pre-installed on devices.