Monica Dinsmore: Head of Esports at EA

0:05Hi, everyone. I'm Hilary Kerr, the co-founder and chief content officer of Who, what where and this is Second Life, a podcast spotlighting women who have truly inspiring careers. We're talking about their work journeys, what they've learned from the process of setting aside their doubts or fears, and what happens when they embark on their second life. Today on the show, I'm speaking with EA's head of eSports, Monica Dinsmore. EA, or Electronic Arts, is an industry leader in digital interactive entertainment, generating the most game downloads on PCs and consoles out of any video game publisher last year.

0:47Monica always knew she wanted to be in charge, but she didn't know which industry she'd end up in. She began working in tech during the dot-com boom of the late 90s and then transitioned into finance for nearly 15 years, but she realized she missed the startup culture of her early career and made her next career move into gaming. She first worked for Riot Games, where she built an award-winning team working across PR, communications, marketing, and more for League of Legends Esports in Europe. And today at EA, Monica has led the esports brands to garner record-breaking engagement. For over a decade, Monica has been a pioneering leader in the male-dominated esports world, and I am so excited for you to hear from her.

1:34Now on Second Life, it's Monica Dinsmore. All right, Monica, are you ready? I'm ready. Let's go. Okay. So we like to start this podcast at the beginning. So what did you study in school? And much more importantly, what did you think you were going to be when you grew up? I studied economics and philosophy. There's a lot of dichotomies in my life and I like to round out my education. So lots of math heavy and business stuff and then the creative stuff too. I also was a little bit bossy on the playground. And so I kind of thought that I was either going to be the president of the United States or I was going to be a CEO.

2:21And I don't even really think I knew what a CEO was, but I knew that they were the boss. and I also knew that I did not want to be the president of the United States. I just wanted to be able to tell people what to do. So that was the CEO that I thought I would be. We are the same. I too wanted to be the president for a very long time because I thought that meant I could just tell everyone what to do. And then I grew up and I was like, no, I don't actually want to go into politics. I don't want to do that at all. Not one bit. So talk to me a little bit about your economics degree as an area of study?

2:54And did you have a specific plan for how you thought you would use that? As you were starting to get towards the end of college, what were you thinking about in terms of your next steps? I thought about law. I like to argue. So I figured that that might be a place that I might land. In fact, I took LSATs and I thought I was going to go get my MBA and started working and realized that I kind of liked making money versus spending more of it on education. So I started working in startups and I just loved it. I didn't want to go back to school. But yeah, I did not have a plan. Honestly, Hillary, I was the first person out of either side of my family to ever go to college.

3:39I didn't even know how to choose a college. I went to a tiny little school and they had a lawyer in town. I'm from a small town in Montana. And that lawyer invited the top 10 % of the graduating class to his office and just gave a presentation about the school. And I was like, this is so cool. I want to go there. And I didn't even visit any other schools. I just ended up there. And I didn't have a plan when I went to college. And then certainly I didn't have a plan when I got out. I went to work at Tower Records, if you remember tower record. I sure do. Yeah. That was like while I figured out what the options were.

4:17Yeah. I didn't know. I never thought like, what's the path to get to be a CEO and where do you even start? So I just kind of stumbled my way into startup land, moving to the Bay Area and being part of like the dot-com boom was super exciting, but random. I love that though. That is so cool. So talk to me about your first major career move out of college. I read that you were an operations manager at a tech startup called LiveMind, and this was in 1999. So for anyone who doesn't know, that was during the middle of the dot-com boom. So I would imagine that in an environment like that, that's not corporate and that's in sort of like a cutting edge area, you would learn pretty quickly if it's something that you could handle or not and like what you thought about it.

5:11So tell me a little bit about the company, what your duties were and how you liked startup life. I loved it. I learned very quickly that I thrive in really dynamic environments. I thrive in chaos. I thrive in sort of bringing order to that chaos. And when you're at a startup, you are growing really, really quickly and everybody's wearing a bunch of different hats. So I was like the builder. I was building the infrastructure for the office. I was building the accounting infrastructure. I was writing HR manuals. What did you know about HR? Nothing. I knew nothing about almost everything. I was just winging it and learning on the fly.

5:56I was surrounded by some very, very intelligent, very capable people that supported me. The leaders of that company were so smart and they were so creative and so innovative. Basically, LiveMind was apps before there were apps. So it was like, hey, what if you could buy movie tickets and book a taxi and make a dinner reservation all from your phone? And everyone was like, oh my God, that's crazy. No way. What a great idea. It was before it's time and it shut before it even had a product to bring to market. So that was sad. And then, you know, the crash happened and I just started unwinding everything.

6:40So then I got to see the flip side of building and creating, and that was taking it all down. Wow. That is a lot for someone who was still very, very young. How did you handle all of that? I think I just went for it. I trusted myself and I felt capable of learning. I was curious. I was excited. I was passionate. And I just was like, I'm going to figure it out. Did you feel like you were building the plane as it was flying? Always. I still do. Pretty much everywhere I've been felt a little bit like that. Okay. So after things started to implode, at what point did you start thinking about making a different pivot in your career?

7:27What kind of jobs were you looking for? Did you plan to stay in the same area? What was going on? Well, one, I met a man who became my husband later on. So I was living in Oakland and I started finding myself driving over to Santa Cruz where he was quite a bit. And I liked it over there. I liked the beach. So I started to kind of focus on like, how am I going to pay the bills? First of all, while I figure out what is next, because startup land was not going to provide for me anymore. So I answered an ad to like do part-time accounting at an asset manager over at the beach. And my second day was 9-11.

8:04Oh God. So I show up to work and everyone's just gathered around the TV going, what the hell is happening? My sister was in New York. And so I was trying to get in touch with her and talking to my family and just happened that this small asset manager that was at Capitola by the sea managed through that crazy global destructive thing that happened, managed his client's money quite well and started to get a lot of interest from all these clients. And all of a sudden, it felt like a startup. And he was growing. And I was like, hey, I can do more than accounting, put me to work. And so convinced him to hire me as his operations manager and started preparing this company for this huge trajectory of growth.

9:00At the same time, just was like, it's so fascinating what's going on, how the markets are impacted by these world events and, you know, how all of this stuff is tied together. So I started to teach myself how to build fund structures and research mutual funds and build these investment vehicles. I love that you accidentally landed at another startup, essentially, like without realizing it. But the great thing about startups is that there's a lot of opportunity for young people. It's not so siloed. I mean, literally from the jump, you were able to do something more. How were you educating yourself?

9:36How were you learning about all of this? Just studying and reading and, you know, mostly learning on the job. Like, oh, how do you do this? Okay. Somebody show me and then I'll do it again. Or, oh, nobody knows. I'll have to go figure it out. And I had a lot of contacts in the industry that would, you know, help me out. And a good note to self, build your relationships, build your network. They will save you every time. And so I just relied on people that knew a lot more than I did. I love that. I also think like people don't always realize there's no problem not knowing, like you just have to ask.

10:14People will help you if you ask, like be humble enough to ask. It's fine. You'll be surprised by what you get back. So how long did you stay in this role and how did it transform over that time? I was there, I think six years. And so we built a small team and we got up to about a billion dollars of assets under management, which was huge for a company that the minimum account size was a hundred thousand. So you can imagine how many accounts that took to get to a billion in that short period of time. And I started to get asked by industry professionals like Fidelity and people in the city to come and talk about small business operations.

10:58And I spent some time on stage and started to rub elbows with the big boys. And I kind of was like, I can do that. And so I decided that maybe I would try my hand in the city at a big company and see how far I could go with that. So I ended up getting a job at BGI, which was at the time they had launched their iShares products and they were doing a lot of alternative investments and I ended up getting hired there and we moved the family to San Francisco. Okay. So this is working for a hedge fund now, right? Well, this is BGI. So this was a, I would say a medium-sized asset manager. So BGI is Barclays Global Investors.

11:42So from a banking perspective in the world, they were quite huge, but their alternative investments were kind of small. They were iShares and they were like small hedge fund business. Got it. And so I started learning. I worked in fixed assets before. I never worked in alternative investments. And so had to learn that too. Not sure how I even got that job, honestly, because it was 2008. And here was the window of opportunity in finance at that time. People were not hiring. They were firing. They were. But if you remember, like the traditional investments imploded and people were like, how are we going to make money?

12:22And they started for better or for worse doing all of these alternative type investments. I just happened again to land in that kind of a weird sweet spot and nerded out in hedge funds for a while. I love that. What were some of the best things that you learned during this time? Like what was difficult? What came naturally to you? We talked about it before relationship building. I was sat in the middle of asset managers and fund administrators and FX teams. And so my role was like coordinating them all to like work together to do complicated things to make sure that our asset managers, our hedge fund managers could get the signals and price the things and go out to market and do the trades.

13:09You know, I always use the example like a swap on an Indian future. How do you trade that? What is that? I don't know what that is. I have to go figure that out and then make sure that they can price it and move around in the market with it. That's so complicated. It is very complicated. And so I think that's where I really started to hone my skills of like bringing people together and making sure that we could build something awesome together. These were really bespoke investment vehicles. If the asset manager had a problem and he really saw an opportunity in the market, but didn't know how to like get it through the pipes, that was a really cool thing that I could help build that like, wow, you know, now you can go take advantage of something that you see can make people money.

14:01So I just got a lot of excitement out of that. I don't mean to assume, but I'm guessing that you worked with a lot of men during this time. Yeah. How did you like that? I mean, I'm always curious because I came up in fashion magazines and then started a company with another woman. I've primarily worked with women my whole career. So I'm always interested as to what that is like. Yeah, it is, was, and has been a challenge. I mean, I started working in a lumber mill when I was a kid and not very many women working in the lumber male, especially teenagers. Yeah, certainly felt that from the very beginning.

14:42So had to develop a very thick skin, learned about HR from that moment because they would meet with me regularly. Are you okay? Do you feel safe? You know, is there anything that you want to talk about? And I was like, I'm good. Then yes, finance, tech, then video games, all male dominated and all absolutely come with their own set of challenges. I would imagine that. So at what point did you start to realize that you didn't want to stay on this financial track forever because you spent almost 15 years working at it? I know. I read that and I was like, what? How is that even possible? Yeah, girl.

15:27I think so BGI was bought by BlackRock. BlackRock is the largest asset manager in the world. They manage trillions of dollars. And when they got bought, you know, they primarily bought BGI from my perspective. I wasn't in the boardroom, but I think they wanted to expand their portfolio. They were primarily fixed income vehicles and they had this software platform that they sold to other asset managers. And they bought BGI primarily for their alternative investment business and iShares. That's where I learned software development management. So I had to help take these investment vehicles that we had built that were very bespoke and very specific to this asset manager's needs and try and figure out how to get them onto this massive enterprise-wide software platform.

16:20So I learned how to build business requirements, like write specs for software engineers to like write code. And I learned Scrum. What is Scrum? It's like a agile methodology that helps you manage projects. You don't start with a thing in the beginning, like a business requirement in the beginning, and then you just like go build it and hope it works. It's like an iterative approach to building software. I got certified. Like what is that? Wild. But it helped me transition into this role at video games. Riot Games was looking for a person. Wait, wait, wait. But before we get to that, how did you know you were done?

17:08At what point were you like, oh, I want to make a change. So BlackRock bought you. You had spent all this time getting these, by the way, great new skills to acquire along the way. I'm like, please like upskill me all the time because it gives me more opportunities, as you just mentioned. 100%. Did you feel like, oh, the end for me is near and so I just need to pivot? Or did you think, I don't like where this is going? I just got bored. It was such a massive buyout and the transition. I mean, I think I was working to support that transition for about three years. And it was just like, this can't be all there is.

17:44and I want to get back to building things. And so I started to kind of think about like, what would it take? Like what type of a company would help me transition back into kind of like a startup environment, but not kill my bank account at the same time. And so I started to think about what kind of a company, like what is like a medium-sized company that's doing something super innovative that I could feel a little bit like I've got the opportunity to do startup-y things, but have a little bit more stability. And so that's when I started looking at different types of industries and looking around at like, okay, who's doing cool shit out in the world?

18:29Like, who's doing some cool stuff that might be the next big thing? That should be everyone's question when they're looking for a new job. Like, who's doing cool shit? Start with that. And that will take you in an interesting direction. Yeah. So you ended up at Riot Games. How did you find that job? What was the process like? And then for our listeners, if someone is not as deeply enmeshed and doesn't know what Riot Games is, can you walk us through it a little bit? For sure. So Riot Games is a video game publisher based in Southern California. At the time, it made one game called League of Legends.

19:04It is one of the largest video game IPs now in the world. It's got a lot of very, very, very dedicated players and has built an entire world around it, eSports included. they branched out to produce a few more games since then but at the time it was just the one and they were kind of small-ish I want to say maybe 600 people when I joined sorry yeah small 600 but in comparison sure yeah in comparison to like what was it like 20 plus thousand at BlackRock. So my sister's husband's best friend worked at Riot Games. That was one aspect of it. The second aspect was my husband is a rock and roll bass player and he was asked to join a band in LA.

19:57And so that sort of made me start looking like what's going on in LA. We're going to move down there. He's going to join this band and I got to figure out, you know, what I'm going to do. Started talking to Riot. And back in the day at Riot Games, it was built by a couple of college friends who then hired a lot of their other friends to work in this video game company. And it was a very, very passionate place. We called it the Devil Wears Prada, like a million people would kill to work here. Yes. And so it was a little culty, but it was super exciting. And of all of the things that I've learned, probably the hardest one was I had to figure out how to play this game.

20:46I had to play League of Legends and I had to be good enough to like reach a certain level. That was a requirement for being considered for the job at the time. You're kidding. No. Did you play video games? I played. I played console games. So I played my Wii and I did like Mario Kart and, you know, stuff like that. So no. The answer is no. This was a different level. This is crazy. I mean, like, I get it. Yeah. I mean, they do not practice that anymore. They cannot. Maybe not totally legal. Did you know as you went through the interview process that you had to do this? I did. It's so funny. I think I had 17 interviews to get that job and it became another thing that I wanted to win because they were looking for a unicorn and I'm like, okay.

21:43That's me. If you're going to find a unicorn, it's right here. That unicorn that you want is someone with finance experience who knows software development and is a big enough nerd to play this game. And it was okay with a bunch of men. Yeah, a hundred percent. And I'm sorry, what was the job that you were interviewing for? It was like a corporate development management role. So basically it was working with their business operations to help them like build proper infrastructure. Because they were trying to professionalize the joint after having hired a bunch of college friends, et cetera, et cetera, which had worked to a certain point, but what got you here won't get you there.

22:20And now they needed to actually like build the foundation and framework. Okay. Yeah. Like all of a sudden budget was a word. Yeah. Yeah. With 600 people you would hope. Yeah, exactly. Okay. So how long did it take for you to learn the game? I was interviewing and playing for months. I think the whole process took like six months, maybe. Wow. 17 interviews over six months. Yeah. I would imagine that does give you a certain amount of time to learn though. I learned. And then in the meantime, I was interviewing with finance companies, like, which is it going to be? And I really wanted that job. I really wanted it.

23:02Why? It was just in my gut. Like I just felt like I belonged there. When I was in finance, I never felt like I could bring my whole self to my job. I spent an inordinate amount of time in cardigans and jackets because I have a lot of tattoos that could not be shown. And I just felt like I was not myself and I was winning at a game that I didn't really care about. At Riot, you could just be you. Yeah. That's the biggest draw was I just want to be myself and I want to work on some cool shit. I love it. Okay, great. So a couple of months in, you go to your first e-sports event in South Korea, right?

23:44Yep. So for any listeners who aren't familiar, can you give a little background on this and how it fits into the larger gaming industry? It's such a wild thing to describe, but it is basically the professional side of playing video games. If you think about playing video games as a sport, just like a real life sport, there is a professional version of it where you've got the best players in the world that are competing for millions of dollars in prizing. There's an entire industry that consists of companies, there's professionalized leagues, there's teams, there's places where these guys live, and there's a chef, and there's a doctor, and there's a physical trainer.

24:31I mean, it's an entire thing. So like they're the Dodgers, 100%. And millions of people watch them, whether it's streaming or whether it's in the Olympic Stadium in Seoul, Korea, where there is tens of thousands of people watching these five dudes play another five dudes in a video game. And it was wild. People lined up down the street, cosplayers dressed to their favorite characters, a whole universe of people that were just wildly passionate about this video game. And I walked into that arena and I was like, this is it. I want to do this. And what the hell is this? That is amazing. I love that you felt so inspired.

25:19And I'm curious because you did make another pivot within your career from the corporate operations into publishing and you became head of publishing operations in North America, head of publishing for Europe in esports. How did you make that transition? How quickly did it happen? And what is the change in responsibility like? It was pretty quick to get out of the corporate space. That was my foot in the door. Your starter job. I know. And it was kind of like my way of like, let's figure out how this whole thing works. And then I started to just feel this pull of like, I've been behind the scenes for so long.

25:57I want to see what's up front. And I think that that was part of that experience of walking into my first e-sports event is this is where, you know, the work comes to life. Like I knew I wasn't going to be a video game developer to like see my game out in the world, but I knew that I could work in a space where you could see the product of your work, like on the people's faces and come to life in an arena. And I was like, how do I get myself into the front of the house? And so once again, you rely on your network and you rely on your relationships that you make and you start to say, hey, if you have an opportunity, keep me in mind.

26:41And that happened really quickly. There was an opportunity to work in North America, start to work on marketing campaigns. And so publishing operations was basically how do you bring it to market? What is the thing? And how do you get to know your audience? And what are the insights? And what are you building for them? And just got to learn another completely different side of the business. And same thing happened with esports. It was like, I didn't know there was an opportunity in Berlin, but like what? And again, my husband plays a role. So he's sitting in Berlin with his tour manager and they're at a pub and they call me and it's morning here in California.

27:28And they call me and they're like, you know, Riot Games has an office here in Berlin. And I'm like, I know. So? And they're like, would you ever consider moving? And I'm like, I've never even been to Germany. Like, what? And I was like, well, I think that there's a country manager summit that's happening in LA right now. And I slacked the country manager of Germany. Like he was the head of the office. And I said, Hey, do you have time for coffee? So I met him like that day for coffee. I know, I don't know how these things happen, but again, like just ask, you know, ask for coffee. So you met with him and what did you say?

28:12Like, Hey, is there ever any opportunity in Berlin? Yeah. I said, here's my background. This is what I do. Do you have a need for someone with my skillset in Berlin? Because I want to try something new. And he was like, I could have used you yesterday. So that was a Thursday. On Tuesday, I was on a plane to Berlin for the first time. So how did you manage to do this too? Like, is that very common at Riot Games where people can move around a lot? Yeah, I think so. Everybody was really supportive and I'm never going to just be like, bye, like leave anyone. And also you're still in the business. I'm still in the business and I can help transition.

28:53And, you know, if you move around, then you create opportunity for other people too. So it was very much supported. And that mentality is like, everyone's kind of opportunistic and everyone's trying to like try something new. And so I felt extremely supported and it was happening so fast. How did you find Berlin? It's such a shift from Southern California. So different. And when I went there, it was February. Not warm. And it was freezing. And I'm from Montana and I understand cold, but it was something different. Like it wasn't like snow cold. It was like ice through your body. And so I just remember thinking like, all these people are riding their bikes.