Mika Kuusisto keynote speaker

ENCE has established itself as the number one esports brand in Finland over the last three years. Especially 2019 has been a year to remember so far, as their players and teams have had record-breaking results. Their ambitious Counter-Strike: Global Offensive project, relaunched in April in 2018 with the acquisition of superstar Aleksi “allu” Jalli together with the most talented Finnish players has seen tremendous growth over the past 16 months. The team was able to bring in the first-ever CS:GO premier event title to Finland at StarSeries i-League Season 6 finals, winning $125,000 along the way.

This was followed by a sensational IEM Katowice Majors Finals in March and Blast PRO Madrid title in April. Even more breathtaking has been Joona “Serral” Sotala’s domination of the Starcraft II -scene throughout 2018, winning seven events including the WCS Global Finals as the first-ever non-Korean in the games 20-year history.

The success they’ve had on the servers requires ENCE as a company to develop so that we’re capable of repeating these success stories across multiple games and to make sure that we are a team that players want to be a part of as esports as the industry moves forward at high speed. Mika Kuusisto joined ENCE as the new CEO in late 2018 and has pushed the organisation to new heights also commercially.

His team has brought in some of world's leading brands as ENCE partners including Samsung, Red Bull and Logitech among others. ENCE is also the only top-class esports organisation in the world without external funding and profitability. Mika has more than 20 years of international leadership experience. He has been part of several technologies and gaming company exits in his career and is now implementing his startup leadership methods to esports and brand building.