Women's History Month spotlight: 20 amazing women in esports

March 18, 2022

by Brian Bencomo

In celebration of Women’s History Month, Nerd Street is shining a spotlight on women who are making an impact on the esports industry. The 20 women below have all distinguished themselves and represent a range of roles, teams, organizations and leagues within the industry. Including casters, players, hosts, journalists and executives, these 20 amazing women have all made the industry better and are examples for women who aspire to break into the industry.

Naz Aletaha

Photo credit: Riot Games

Naz Aletaha is the global head of League of Legends esports for Riot Games. She has been with Riot for over 10 years and recently was promoted to her current position. Aletaha holds one of the most important positions at the biggest esports company in the world as she oversees their crown jewel esport.

Indiana "Froskurinn" Black

Photo credit: Riot Games

Indiana “Froskurinn” Black has been a caster for the Oceanic Pro League, China’s League of Legends Pro League and the League of Legends European Championship. Froskurinn recently joined G4TV and has appeared on several of the gaming channel’s programs including the esports show called Boosted.

Melanie “meL” Capone

Photo credit: Nerd Street

There are hundreds of women who have competed in Riot Games’ VALORANT Game Changers series, but one of the most prominent players and voices has been Cloud9 White’s Melanie “meL” Capone. She is the in-game leader for the most successful women’s team in North America, with C9 White winning all three NA Game Changers tournaments in 2021. She also has been an advocate for women’s teams competing in other tournament series beyond Game Changers.

Christine “Potter” Chi

Photo credit: Riot Games

Christine “Potter” Chi is one of the most successful female Counter-Strike and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players of all time, playing from 2006 to 2018. In 2018, she transitioned to being a CS:GO broadcast analyst, where she worked numerous Blast and DreamHack tournaments. In 2020, she transitioned to VALORANT, where she was originally the in-game leader for Evil Geniuses’ mixed-gender roster before transitioning to being the team’s head coach. In addition to being the team’s coach, she also has been on the broadcast analyst desk for major VALORANT tournaments, including Masters and Champions.

Eefje “Sjokz” Depoortere

Photo credit: Riot Games

Eefje “Sjokz” Depoortere has been a prominent figure in the esports world, and particularly League of Legends, for over a decade. Sjokz started her career as an interviewer for European organization SK Gaming before moving on to host the broadcast desk for Riot Games’ EU LCS, LEC and numerous international competitions including the League of Legends World Championship. She won Best Esports Host at The Game Awards for three consecutive years from 2018 to 2020. In 2020 and 2021, she also won Esports Host of the Year at the Esports Awards.

Anna “SuperCakes” Donlon

Photo credit: Screenshot via Riot Games / YouTube

If you love VALORANT, then you can thank Anna “SuperCakes” Donlon. She is the executive producer and dev team lead for VALORANT, a game that has quickly become one of the most popular and fastest growing esports since the game’s launch in 2020. As one of the faces of the dev team, Donlon is at the forefront of providing updates to fans through the Dev Diaries series on VALORANT’s YouTube channel.

Johanna Faries

Photo credit: Activision Blizzard

Johanna Faries is the general manager of the Call of Duty League. She originally joined Activision Blizzard as commissioner of Call of Duty Esports in 2018, She became head of league for both the Call of Duty League and Overwatch League in 2020 and shifted back to focusing exclusively on COD in 2021. Prior to jumping into the world of esports, Fairies worked at the National Football League for over a decade.

Heather “sapphiRe” Garozzo

Photo credit: TechCrunch

SapphiRe is the vice president of talent at Dignitas as well as an observer for CS:GO, VALORANT and PUBG. She has been observing since 2015 and has worked CS:GO majors as well as the biggest VALORANT events, including Masters and Champions. Prior to her career as an observer and in the Dignitas front office, she was a professional CS:GO player. SapphiRe also recently helped launch Raidiant.gg, a site meant to highlight and promote women in gaming.

Soe Gschwind

Photo credit: Overwatch League

Soe Gschwind has been involved in the Overwatch League since the league’s inaugural season in 2017. She has worked as an interviewer and broadcast desk analyst and host. Prior to joining the Overwatch League, she worked in esports for over a decade including competitive Quake, Starcraft and Dota. In 2020 she was named Host of the Year at the*gameHERs Awards.

Stephanie “MissHarvey” Harvey

Photo credit: Nerd Street

Stephanie “MissHarvey” Harvey had a long and distinguished career in the women’s CS and CS:GO scenes, playing from 2004 to 2019, most notably with Counter Logic Gaming Red. She won the Electronic Sports World Cup five times. She is currently director of development for CLG. She has been named to Forbes’ 30 under 30 list, and in 2021 received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Esports Awards.

Nicole LaPointe Jameson

Photo credit: Riot Games

Nicole LaPointe Jameson is the CEO of Evil Geniuses, one of the most recognizable esports organizations in the world. She was made CEO at 25 years old in 2019 and was named to Forbes’ 30 for 30 list in 2020. Under her leadership, EG have promoted several diversity initiatives and signed the first mixed-gender VALORANT team in 2021.

Ashley Kang

Photo credit: Riot Games

Ashley Kang produces arguably the most comprehensive coverage on Korean League of Legends through her video interviews on Korizon Esports. Kang quit her job as a software engineer in New Zealand to pursue esports storytelling in South Korea, bridging the gap for fans across the world with a YouTube channel numbering 63,000 subscribers. At the 2021 Esports Awards, she won the Esports Content Creator of the Year. Recently, she has also been a postgame interviewer on Riot Games’ LEC broadcasts.

Sue “Smix” Lee

Photo credit: DreamHack

Currently the vice president of talent management at RTS, Sue “Smix” Lee has been involved in esports since 2009, beginning with translating postgame Starcraft interviews from Korean to English and posting them on Team Liquid’s forum. Since then she has become one of the most recognizable esports hosts, working some of the biggest Starcraft and CS:GO events. In 2017, AdWeek named her one of the most powerful women in sports.

Rachel “Seltzer” Quirico

Photo credit: ESL

Rachel “Seltzer” Quirico has been involved in just about every major esports title through working in the industry for over a decade. From playing competitive Team Fortress 2 to hosting some of the biggest events in Starcraft, Hearthstone, CS:GO, League of Legends, Overwatch and Pokémon among other games, Seltzer has become one of the best-known hosts in esports. She was named to Forbes’ 30 under 30 in 2017.

Emily Rand

Photo credit: Oshin Tudayan/Riot Games via ESPAT

Emily Rand spent many years as a journalist with Yahoo, The Score and most notably with ESPN Esports, where she won Journalist of the Year at the Esports Awards in 2020. She’s known for her genuine love for jungle pathing as well as producing some of the best written stories in League of Legends esports. Since 2021 she has been an analyst on the broadcast desk for the League Championship Series.

Lauren “pansy” Scott

Photo credit: Riot Games

Lauren “pansy” Scott has been a fixture as a caster in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive for many years having casted some of the biggest ESL and IEM tournaments. She also has been casting VALORANT since the game’s release in 2020 and has become one of the top casters for the game’s European and international events. In 2021, Pansy was on the call for both international Masters tournaments and VALORANT Champions, including the grand final.

Erin Ashley Simon

Photo credit: Erin Ashley Simon

Erin Ashley Simon is a co-owner of XSET, one of the newest and most diverse esports organizations. Over the past few years she has hosted and produced esports shows for Cheddar Esports and VENN. In 2021, she created a scholarship program at her alma mater, the University of Kentucky, in order to help make esports more accessible for students exploring the industry in college.

Amanda Stevens

Photo credit: Amanda Stevens

Amanda Stevens has been a tireless advocate for diversity and inclusion in gaming and esports. She has worked as a journalist and content creator as well as an inclusivity ambassador for Cloud9, affiliate for AnyKey and ambassador for Trans Lifeline. Stevens ran a Street Fighter V Tournament in 2020 that raised $10,200 for Trans Lifeline.

Tricia Sugita

Photo credit: Riot Games

Tricia Sugita, the CEO of FlyQuest, has been a huge champion of environmental causes and mental health awareness. In 2020, the organization began promoting a “Go Green” initiative that led to the organization’s TreeQuest and SeaQuest initiatives. The organization donated money to help plant trees and protect coral reefs in conjunction with the org’s League of Legends team’s success. The org’s jersey designer Phien Le has also created jerseys related to the team’s initiatives to amplify the message.

Li “Liooon” Xiaomeng

Photo credit: Blizzard

Liooon rose to prominence in 2019 after she became the first woman to win a major Hearthstone championship. She won the Hearthstone Grandmasters Global Finals at BlizzCon that year. After her victory, Liooon had a powerful message about women in esports saying: “This is the best way to strike back at those people who doubted me only because I am a girl. It proves that girls can be strong pro players, just as guys do.”

Lead photo credit: DreamHack