Galaxy Racer Scores Former FaZe Clan and Playfy Execs for North American Presence
Spencer Held and Hang Tran tapped to lead the charge.
We decided to do an additional issue of People on the Move this week for three reasons: to highlight talent from a recent layoff still in need of employment (we’re calling it a “Spotlight”), two really big and interesting stories that couldn’t wait until the tailend of the week, and because we didn’t want Thursday’s edition to be too overwhelming. Hope you enjoy it!
Let’s get into this week’s biggest moves in esports and gaming! - James Fudge.
Galaxy Racer Makes a Play for North America with High-Profile Hires
Dubai-based esports organization Galaxy Racer is making some moves into North America with two high-profile hires this week. Those hires include former FaZe Clan Talent Manager Spencer Held and former Playfly Esports Director of Marketing Hung Tran. Tran will serve as director of marketing at Galaxy Racer North America, while Held will take on the role of talent manager for the region.
Both will help spearhead and promote a new North American presence and an initiative called HER Galaxy, which hopes to promote and highlight women in esports and content creation in the region.
“Galaxy Racer is building a very talented team of seasoned executives and I am honored to be working with them,” Tran told me on Monday. “My first focus will be launching Her Galaxy, an initiative to empower women at the intersection of esports, gaming, and culture.”
In addition to these new hires, Galaxy Racer is looking to fill additional roles for North America to build out its team including tournament operator, social media manager, esports manager, digital marketing manager, content producer, and motion/graphic designer. It is also on the hunt for female content creators who are keen to work with the company in building a North American presence (find out more about all of those roles here).
The Esports Awards Hires PGA Tour Pro JP Mooney
The Esports Awards, the awards show honoring the best and the brightest in the global esports industry, has hired PGA Tour professional golfer JP Mooney as its new logistics coordinator. Mooney shared why he decided to take on this new role with us on Tuesday:
“Away from the desk–whether it's working or gaming–most of my life has been dedicated to golf. I’m a professional golfer, I picked up the sport when I was eight-years-old. Obviously, tournaments are always a big deal, but my highlight to date was playing in last year’s Esports Awards Open presented by Golf & Gaming Club at Texas Rangers GC. I ended up winning the ‘closest to the pin’ prize but not being able to beat Bryson Dechambeau’s team overall. However, there’s always this year.
“After the golf event was finished, I ended up helping at last year’s Esports Awards and loved the drive, passion, and commitment that the whole team showed during a very busy schedule. I think that’s what really made me jump at the opportunity when it came around to being able to join the Esports Awards.”
Mooney went on to say that he expects that this year’s event and golf tournament, which will take place at Resorts World Las Vegas, “will be bigger than ever.”
The Esports Awards takes place Dec. 13, in Las Vegas—general admission tickets and packages are still available here. The awards ceremony will be broadcast live on Twitch.
Spotlight: Former 100 Thieves Producer Patrick Coyne
Last month Patrick Coyne was one of several people let go by Los Angeles-based esports organization 100 Thieves, and though he has had several interesting and promising interviews with other companies since that time, he still has not been hired—which is pretty mind boggling considering that before he joined 100 Thieves he worked for Team Liquid in a similar role.
During his time at 100 Thieves, Coyne created and produced both short- and long-form content for the organization's various teams and content creators (most notably its League of Legends Championship Series team).
If you are in need of an experienced content producer, you can learn more about Patrick Coyne on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Movers & Shakers
Jeffrey Collett, who served as director of operations for Cloud9's Training Grounds, has left the company to join the University of California San Diego as the new head coach of the men's rowing team. Collett spent more than a year-and-a-half applying his traditional sports coaching skills to help train aspiring esports professionals. On a related note, Cloud9 has announced that it has turned over responsibilities for Training Grounds to performance partner FITGMR.
After more than 10 years at London-based tournament organizer FACEIT, Roald Van Buuren has decided to leave the company and his role as director of esports. Van Buuren made the announcement last week and did not indicate where he would be going next, noting only that he planned to take some time off to "recharge." FACEIT and ESL were acquired earlier this year and merged into one company by Savvy Gaming Group, which is backed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the government-controlled Public Investment Fund.
Video game industry veteran Kathy Dongo has joined gaming peripherals maker Razer as its new director of product marketing and business development. Dongo has worked at some of the most high-profile gaming companies in the world including Capcom, Nintendo, and MMORPG company NCSoft. She has also worked at Rakuten and Amazon in various roles.
People on the Move
Here is this week’s list of promotions, hires, and departures in the gaming/esports industry:
Esports:
Alex Chin has been promoted to the role of project manager at Enthusiast Gaming.
Dignitas picks up Nikki Justine as its newest content creator.
Batuhan Bacak joins ESL Gaming to take on the role of project manager - creative strategy.
eFuse hires Luis Gomez as its new social media coordinator.
John McDermott leaves Long Island University to join University of Mississippi as its new director of esports programs.
Ross Groves has left Nerd Street to join Team Liquid as senior partnerships manager.
Grant Rousseau joins Saudi-based Team Falcons as its global director of esports and European director of operations—he left the publicly traded, London-based Guild Esports in June.
Chrystina Martel leaves ESL Gaming to join BLAST as its new head of esports product.
Eric Aaberg is promoted to the role of social media manager at Complexity Gaming.
Ingmar Kogri joins Cloud9 as a video editor.
Ninjas in Pyjamas hires Troels Robl for the role of director of performance.
Amanda Adams says goodbye to ESL Gaming and hello to The Goat Agency as its new community manager.
Playfy Esports recently promoted Curtis Winger to VP of operations; Charles O'Donnell to VP of sales & marketing, and Haleigh Durkin to director of marketing.
Gaming:
Shawn Barnett joins Blizzard Entertainment as its new senior talent marketing specialist.
Imshan Ali joins 2K Games as its new senior technical product manager.
Capcom veterans Hiroyuki Kobayashi and Sengoku Basara join NetEase.
Paweł Feldman is promoted to chief business development officer at Warsaw-based game developer 11 bit studios.
Alexandria Belk leaves 2K Vegas to join parent company 2K Games as its new people operations generalist.
Adam Fisher leaves Bidstack after more than three years to join Activision Blizzard as its new associate director of sales.
Taylor Nunemacher joins Blizzard as a recruiter.
Paweł Feldman leaves Capitol Records after more than five years to join Mythical Games as its senior director of music & brand licensing.
Other:
Adam Rosenberg leaves his long-time role as senior games reporter for Mashable.
Warren Lincoln takes on the role of senior project manager at Reality+.
Stephen Hanna joins PlaySide Studios as its new UI artist.
Ashutosh Bajpai takes on the role of creative head at India-based gaming fan engagement platform FanSpace.
In Other News…
💰 EA filed an 8K form with the SEC to announce its intention to buy back $2.6B USD of its common stock.
⚒ Sports Business Journal seeks to fill an on-site graphic designer position, while Florida-based esports organization Misfits Gaming Group has multiple open roles including client services manager, community manager, dev manager, private chef, social media video producer, software engineer, TikTok producer, and video editor.
🏆 Esports Engine Co-Founder and Chief Production Officer Ryan Thompson is named a "LEADERS UNDER 40" by Leaders in Sport.
🕹 Kids teach their grandparents how to compete in games on the new show, "Game on Grandparents."
🎯 The South Korean government takes aim at play-to-earn.
🎟 The International 11 tickets are already gone...
Want to highlight your latest hire? Looking to promote a new job opening? Drop me a line at jamesbfudge@gmail.com with the subject line “People on the Move.”