This is the first in a five-part series on women in the esports industry.

March 8 is International Women’s Day and to celebrate The Esports Observer is recognizing some of the amazing women working and serving in prominent leadership roles within the esports industry.

For the next five days, we will be sharing valuable stories and insights from a diverse group of movers and shakers—from how their esports journeys began to different ways women can join and thrive in this burgeoning industry.

As with any profession, there is no “one way” to get involved in esports and these experts forged their own paths to get there. Here are their stories, presented in no particular order:

For CEO of Super League Gaming Ann Hand, that journey began as an executive for some of the world’s largest brands.

“I worked for BP, Exxon Mobile, and McDonald’s in a variety of executive roles running big, global P&Ls,” Hand told The Esports Observer. “I met some venture capitalists along the way who said, ‘Hey, why don’t you try running an emerging growth start-up?’ So, I ran one in the Bay area for about five years and really loved it. My dad was an entrepreneur growing up—I’m one of four girls—and I think somewhere deep inside, it spoke to me a little bit that I’d like to try my hand at that.”

Having gotten a taste of small business leadership, Hand took on the role of CEO for Super League Gaming , a company that brings amateur players together for esports tournaments.

“It really was a collegial, warm welcome that I got. People knew that esports was early arriving as a legitimate market space and they were excited to see outsiders,” says Hand.

Karina Ziminaite, head of communications at G2 Esports had embarked on a journey of higher education when she discovered a whole new world.

“I worked as a journalist back in my home country, Lithuania, when I decided that I needed a greater professional challenge and moved all the way to Germany for my Master’s studies,” Ziminaite said. “Midway through that I became acquainted with some people from ESL…had a chance to visit MMC studios in Cologne, home of the LCS at the time and got interested—mainly by the fact that I wasn’t aware of such a huge production and esports scene at all.

“As a curious person, I made myself more familiar with it and even followed my interest by writing a 250-page Master thesis on esports in mainstream media. Two weeks after, I defended it, got a job at Freaks 4U Gaming, and from there moved to G2 Esports in July 2017, and here I am.”

Christie St. Martin, senior director of social strategy for Sparks found a way to combine her passion for gaming with her chosen career path.

“I should have known this would be my thing ever since grade two,” laughed St. Martin, remembering her obsession with Spy Vs. Spy on NES. “Kids today will never relate to playing Everquest and Diablo on dial-up,” she added.

When she moved to her University campus, St. Martin found a new home in the college’s LAN cafe, where she started playing Counter-Strike …a lot.

“Eighteen hours a day later, I got pretty decent at it and I started to feel more comfortable entering local events to eventually Cyberathlete Amateur League (CAL). And so the esports passion began. Since University I had been in working in what would later be called social media marketing which turned into social strategy, and finally, here we are today when my two passions collide in the best possible way.”

For Nielsen Esports Managing Director Nicole Pike, her path to esports was a natural one. She helped build the Nielsen Games business, which provides consumer research and consulting to endemic players in the gaming space.

“A few years ago, we started to see increasing interest from our gaming clients in understanding and monetizing the esports space,” related Pike. “As a company, Nielsen evaluated these trends and decided we had the opportunity to provide value to the esports industry in the form of validated, thirty-party data and measurement and Nielsen Esports was born. I led the internal initiative to develop the business case around this new Nielsen vertical and was excited to move into the newly formed global leadership role when our business began in mid-2017.”

On the other side of the spectrum, The Esports Observer’s Head of Events, Prinita Naidoo, says that discovering esports was like “opening the doors to Narnia.”

“I feel like I kind of tripped and fell into esports, really,” Naidoo said. “My background is in events and then I moved into the marketing world. I just applied for a job on LinkedIn.

“Esports was not a word that I knew. I had the preconceived idea that anybody that played video games was in their mom’s basement and not contributing to society. To learn that competitive gamers are like athletes with training schedules, psychologists, and nutritionists…that was amazing.”

ESL North America CEO Yvette Martinez-Rea was also a newcomer to the world of competitive gaming but to be fair, so was the idea of mainstream esports.

“Prior to joining ESL , I worked at various companies in the technology industry, with a majority of my career spent at Yahoo!. Coming from a background in technology and media, I was impressed and excited about the massive global audience esports had amassed — building such a highly coveted and engaged audience isn’t easy, and most media and sports properties struggle to do it, but esports already had over 200 million actively engaged young fans around the world.

“When I was recruited to join ESL as the COO of North America three years ago, esports was still relatively under the radar, and I wasn’t very familiar with the industry,” Martinez-Rea said. “But, as soon as I did more research, I was immediately enamored.”

For Wendy Lecot, head of strategic alliances and digital marketing innovation at HyperX, her journey began with technology marketing and remains there to this day.

“I’ve held positions in product management, product marketing, search, social, and digital marketing,” said Lecot. “Most recently I led the digital transformation of Kingston Technology and HyperX creating a whole new customer experience. Two years ago I joined HyperX exclusively to help us become the #1 gaming lifestyle company. My role is to have conversations about cooperative programs with non-gaming companies that are looking at gamers as a new audience acquisition strategy.”

Lindsey Eckhouse is the commercial director at G2 Esports. When buzz surrounding the esports industry began to seep into her own world, it was time for her to see for herself what it was all about.

“I started my career in management consulting, moved into ticket sales, and then into brand and marketing consulting with IMG ,” Eckhouse recalls. “Following that, I joined the NFL where I worked on marketing and brand partnerships for its international business. Over the past few years, it seemed the primary theme in the traditional sport and entertainment industry was esports—its momentum, its growth, its differentiation, and fan base.

“The excitement of that trajectory coupled with the positioning of the industry as the confluence of technology, entertainment, and sport were the reasons I was so excited to dive in.”



Elaine Chase is the vice president of esports at Wizards of the Coast but prior to that, she was an avid player.

“I played in a few Magic Pro Tours including the very first one in 1996,” Chase told us. “I was also a high-level Magic judge and had run Magic Pro Tour Qualifiers and prerelease events for Magic’s biggest New York-based tournament organizer, Gray Matter.

“Leading Magic’s esports initiative feels like a homecoming back to my roots in competitive gaming,” she said. Chase has now worked for Wizards of the Coast for 20 years.

Morgan Romine, Ph.D. is the director of initiatives for AnyKey, an advocacy and research initiative created by Intel and ESL. For anyone who has followed Ubisoft in the last decade, however, you might remember her as the founder of the Frag Dolls.

“I got into esports back in 2004 before competitive gaming was known as esports,” recalled Romine. “After graduating from college, I got a job as a community manager for Ubisoft Entertainment. Not long after, a few colleagues and I had the idea of founding an all-women competitive gaming team to promote and compete in Tom Clancy games like Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six. We recruited women who were already playing these games competitively and created the Frag Dolls.

The Frag Dolls went on to become the first all-woman team to earn semi-pro status at MLG and the first all-woman team to win first place at Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) in 2006.

“My background founding and leading the Frag Dolls gave me a wealth of personal experience and valuable perspective on the challenges faced by women and minority groups in the broader esports community,” said Romine. “In my current position, I am an advocate for diversity and inclusion in gaming and esports.”

The Story Mob Co-Founder Kalie Moore was looking for a new career path and found it on a road trip.

“I was introduced into the world of esports by Jens Hilgers, my mentor and now investor in The Story Mob,” Moore recalled, saying that her background was in tech PR but she wanted to promote something more exciting than ecommerce.

“A friend of mine worked at DOJO Madness and introduced me to Jens, who explained if I wanted a job I should join him at IEM Katowice the following weekend,” says Moore. “The moment we arrived at the Spodek Arena and saw the thousands of fans queued outside in the freezing cold, I knew I had found a unique industry and I couldn’t wait to be part of its growth. Jens offered me a job that Monday and I joined BITKRAFT Esports Ventures and DOJO Madness as Head of PR.”

Moore went on to co-found The Story Mob, the world’s first esports-focused communications group.

Similarly, fellow Story Mob Co-Founder Nicola Piggott rode her PR skills from 15 years in brand communications to the world of video games.

“I was lucky enough to join Riot Games in 2012 when they were starting to make a heavy investment of time and resources into esports,” related Piggot. “I joined as an overall comms pro working on internal communications but identified pretty early on that this was the place I wanted to be—it was so exciting and invigorating to see a sport literally take shape in front of my eyes.

“Working with the esports team so early in their journey meant that I had a ringside seat to some of the most amazing moments in esports—like the first esports event in the Staples Center, the first days of the LCS and our first huge event in Korea. In 2018, I took the plunge and left Riot to set up The Story Mob.”

Sabrina Ratih joined G2 Esports in January as partnership executive. Like many of the women we spoke with, she has applied existing skills and an entrepreneurial spirit to a new industry.

“I have an international marketing background and worked in the food industry before joining Red Bull, heading their global partnerships team,” Ratih explained. “During this time I started to get more familiar with the fascinating world of gaming and esports from an event and editorial perspective. After leaving Red Bull I founded my own company focused on brand partnerships which then led me to G2 Esports.”

As for Story Mob Co-Founder Anna Rozwandowicz, it was all about finding the right story to tell.

“Everything in life is a story we’re either telling, listening to, or starring in,” Rozwandowicz said. “Stories were my jam since I was on my way to becoming a journalist/writer. Also, I am an extremely well-organized person and love putting things (like PR campaigns) together.”

Video games are a storytelling medium and Rozwandowicz soon found herself telling stories about esports.

“I started my career in gaming with a PR gig at Newzoo , and from there moved to a position at Perfect World, where I worked on the launch of a few games—including Neverwinter, an online action MMO,” she recalled. “It was through an activation that we did for Neverwinter at Paris Games Week in 2012 that I met ESL and ended up joining them in 2014.”

Heather “Sapphire” Garozzo is the vice president of marketing for Dignitas but before she joined the organization’s management, she was a professional player.

“I’ve been involved in esports since 1999, starting casually as a Counter-Strike player,” said Garozzo. “A few years later, I began playing competitively and eventually went on to play for a number of well-known organizations including teams like Evil Geniuses . I hardly remember a time when I wasn’t involved in esports. It’s been a focal point of my life for two decades.

“After I stopped competing, I still wanted to stay closely involved with a competitive team so began managing my women’s CS: GO team that I played for. That team was recruited to Dignitas . It quickly became apparent I was more hands on that a traditional managing, putting in extra effort to build our players’ brands, get their stories in mainstream media and engage with sponsors. Three months into managing the team, I was hired as the director of fan engagement and promoted to vice president of Marketing in late 2018.”

This series will run through Monday, March 11. Click here to read part 2.