ESL is happy to announce the appointment of the former professional Counter-Strike player, Jonas “bsl” Alsaker Vikan, to the position of the global Tournament Director. In this new role, Jonas will oversee the seamless execution of all high profile ESL tournaments, including events in its flagship series ESL One, Intel(r) Extreme Masters and ESL Pro League.

“I was always a fan of competitive gaming and fortuned enough to turn my hobby into a profession,” said Jonas Alsaker Vikan, Tournament Director at ESL. “It’s amazing to see how far the industry all has come and I am very excited to become an active part at ESL, pushing and fostering esports even further in the upcoming years.“

“We are excited to welcome Jonas as the new Tournament Director to our product team,” said Ulrich Schulze, Senior Vice President of Product at ESL. “With his extensive expertise in the esports industry, resulting from a variety of job experiences, Jonas embodies the natural fit we were looking for.”

Jonas started his professional career in esports  in 2002 as a professional Counter-Strike 1.6 player and co- founder of his first team Meredia. Only one year later, Jonas founded the Norwegian team NoA which he lead to become one of the world’s top teams at the time, taking home several prestigious victories. In the following years, he continued his career as professional player in several teams before exploring the industry as lead feature writer covering esports around the world, general manager of team Berlin Allianz during the start of the Championship Gaming Series and commentator and desk host for several event series.

Most recently, Jonas has worked as a journalist for Norway’s oldest newspapers “Adresseavisen”. He has received numerous awards as well as one of the diplomas from SKUP – Norway’s most prestigious award for investigative journalism and recognized as the country’s equivalent to the Pulitzers in the United States.