Esports tournament organiser BLAST has promoted its Managing Director of Development, Leo Matlock, to the role of Chief Business Officer (CBO).
He moves into the position having spent the last five years at BLAST.
Matlock first joined BLAST in September 2018 as its Head of Commercial Solutions and Strategy before becoming its Commercial Director a year later. He since worked as the company’s Managing Director of Development and Vice President of Commercial before securing his new role as CBO.
The announcement comes soon after BLAST also promoted Joe Lovelace, previously Senior Public Relations Manager, to its Head of Communications position.
In a LinkedIn post, Matlock spoke about being proud to have been awarded the position, adding that he is “particularly excited to bring together our work across commercial, business development and publisher partnerships into one new unit with a fantastic team of people and partners, who I know will further develop our already great work as industry leaders.
“Esports and gaming never sits still – and neither will we – so stay tuned.”
The personnel developments continue to highlight what is a big year for BLAST. In May, the organiser hosted Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s last-ever major, which the company also used to promote its BLAST.tv viewership platform.
More recently, BLAST Premier, a Counter-Strike league run by BLAST, announced a partnership with esports data platform Shikenso Analytics.
BLAST is also looking ahead to 2024 having opened bids for host locations for ‘over five’ of its major tournaments, including those for BLAST Premier and Rainbow Six Siege circuit BLAST R6. As part of the announcement, the company revealed that 2023’s tournaments brought an ‘economic impact’ of more than €22m (~£19m) to its host locations while more than 60% of attendees had travelled from outside the host cities.
