Esports team owners are anything but typical. Even a legacy organization can find a new grasp on their respective competitive scene with the right ownership group—as was the case with H2K Gaming. When the London-based org was purchased in late 2015, the new CEO Susan Tully immediately went to work with the new management team, strengthening its already well known esports brand.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]“Regardless of the the genre of entertainment, there are basic business principles and practices that all significant businesses follow, and esports is no different.”[/perfectpullquote]

“In less than two years, people know what H2K stands for,” Tully told The Esports Observer. “Our ability to build highly competitive teams, our care for our players, our professionalism and the fact that we stand up for what we believe in, all of which appeals to players, fans, and our business partners.”

Susan Tully’s professional career spans thirty-five years, across a multiple entertainment fields. Having started at the entertainment practice of Ernst & Young, she went on to hold a number of executive financial positions, spanning multinational businesses to entrepreneurial-private equity backed ventures—including startups and turnaround companies. Her most recent position prior to H2K Gaming, was as the CFO for Kanye West’s West Brands.

Invited into esports by friend and H2k Co-Owner Chairman Richard Lippe, Tully says the industry’s most striking difference is how the game publishers control the IP in a manner not seen in other forms of entertainment. “Owning that IP right gives the game publisher power and control,” she says. “In the music industry for example there are certain shared rights and multiple revenue streams that both companies and artists share which creates the partnership between the parties”.

[perfectpullquote align=”left” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]”I know where things can go wrong, and it’s my job to make sure our players are safe.”[/perfectpullquote]

Despite this, she says, esports is still ultimately sports entertainment. While unique in nature, as a growing cultural phenomenon it’s centered around fandom, branding, and viewership. “Regardless of the genre of entertainment, there are basic business principles and practices that all significant successful businesses follow, and esports is no different.”

When it came to H2K’s own rebranding, the work needed to start less than a month before the 2016 EU LCS Spring split began. The suddenness of the management change did leave some of the players initially skeptical, and as the only female CEO of an esports team, Tully said she expected some challenges when it came to gender, but that was not the case.

“Our players share our core values and they have always treated me respectfully. Coming in I wasn’t sure if gender would be an obstacle and I was very pleased it wasn’t with our players”.

EU LCS wallpaper of 2018 H2K Gaming squad. Artist: Janine Berg.



A lot of the day-to-day restructuring concerned the team house operations—a very unique phenomenon in esports. Combining a work and living environment can be challenging, but with esports players building increasingly high profiles, one of H2K’s first crucial tasks was to build infrastructure within this domestic work environment—including structured schedules, a social media policy and a no-guests rule.