John Needham becomes President of Esports at Riot Games

Publisher Riot Games announces the appointment of John Needham as President of Esports at Riot Games. In his new role, Needham will lead the company's esports division, which brings together all the esports disciplines and operations of Riot Games.

According to the press release, Needham will now oversee all of Riot Games' global esports efforts, including its esports leagues, teams and players in those leagues, and a host of esports events. What's more, the promotion promotes Needham to senior executive officer at the company. He will report directly to Riot Games CEO Nicolo Laurent.

As a reminder, Needham has been part of Riot Games since 2017, when he joined the company as Managing Director for Europe. He later served as Managing Director for Europe and North America and Chairman of the League of Legends European Championship (LEC).

During his tenure, he oversaw the rebranding of LEC, which included moving to a long-term partnership model with 10 teams. Needham also recently promoted several key executives to new roles, including Waylen Rosell as Global Esports Operations Leader, Naz Aletahu as LoL Esports Global Leader and Leo Faria as Wild Rift Global Esports Leader.

Prior to joining Riot Games, Needham worked at Microsoft, where he reportedly oversaw projects Hololens, 3DCreation, Microsoft casual games, and Age of Empires.