About
Hi! I’m Dakota and I’m a 25-year-old Community Manager focused on the gaming and esports industries currently based out of Seattle, WA.
My gaming industry journey started by spending over 4 years developing gaming and esports communities in Colorado by: building my university’s flagship gaming club, consulting with universities on gaming and esports, and hosting a lot of events.
I was a co-creator of the student-run PACG which helped unite the schools within the PAC-12 and further collegiate esports.
I worked for Blizzard Entertainment for a few years supporting the collegiate gaming and esports scene with Tespa, and then transitioned to Esports where I led the broadcast moderation team that was responsible for Overwatch League, Hearthstone Masters, BlizzConline, and other productions.
Throughout 2021, I was a Community Coordinator for Santa Monica Studio launching God of War on PC and God of War Ragnarök.
Currently, I’m a Community Manager for Private Division, supporting the early access release of Kerbal Space Program 2 from in-house studio Intercept Games.
Mission
Use the power of communities to celebrate the human experience.
Communities, and specifically gaming communities, have the unique ability to connect people by allowing us to ignore the traditional cultural barriers that are placed between us by society. Gender, race, age, status, language, disability, and so much more disappear when you escape into an in-depth world or a high-stakes competition.
Games are my life and I want to give everyone the opportunity to make a new friend, cheer for their favorite team, and break free of the everyday.
I have also been actively involved in communities surrounding tech, 3D printing, gardening, video production, event production, broadcast, and LGBTQA+ activism.
Companies I’ve Worked For
Private Division / Santa Monica Studio / Activision Blizzard / Lockwood Publishing
Brands I’ve Worked With
ASUS ROG / CLG / Coca-Cola / Intel / Nvidia / Redbull / Riot Games / Twitch / US Army
Skills
My skill-set develops over time to fit the needs of the various projects that I work on. I love to learn and come up with creative solutions to the unique problems that arise throughout a project’s lifetime.
- Brands
- Produced purpose-driven brand identities through industry and cultural positioning.
- Career
- Developed career-building initatives and personally mentored dozens of college students.
- Communication
- Used crisis and conflict resolution skills to prevent fires before they happened.
- Communities
- Built up my collegiate gaming community by over 700% over 4 years.
- Data
- Worked directly with Research teams to generate key insights into audiences.
- Design
- Created the brand idenity of my gaming community and professionally consulted on merchandise.
- Events
- Hosted dozens of events of various sizes with a myriad of budgets/venues.
- Knowledge
- Utilized Wiki.js to develop a knowledge-sharing platform for club leaders.
- Leadership
- Led a team of over 40, including delegating tasks, conflict resolution, and weekly meetings.
- Moderation
- Discords with 7000+ users, subreddits with 30,0000+ readers, and live chats with 700,000+ viewers.
- PM Methods
- Worked with an assortment of software to maximize team workflow efficiency.
- Social Media
- Managed accounts on various platforms with 1.5m+ followers while growing impressions by over 200%.
- Web
- Set up websites including domains, hosting, and platform development.
Projects
- CoronaClash
- Led the partnerships team for a Rocket League charity event that raised over $6000 for Covid-19 relief.
- Flatiron 3
- Oversaw the venue and administration for one of the largest Smash events ever to come to Colorado.
Coverage
Let me brag a bit, won’t ya?
ESPN / Kotaku / Denver Post / Colorado Daily / CU Independent / The Collegiate Esport Podcast
Panels: Intercollegiate Game Night, Dreamhack Atlanta ’18