Today is my last day at Team Liquid and Teamliquid.net in an official capacity.
I've had very special run at TL thanks to the incredible drive of everyone who has sacrificed their time, energy and sometimes sanity to make Teamliquid the most important website in professional Starcraft. I remember my early days on TL when one of the most important moments of the year was finding out which WCG USA competitor would get a sole chance to compete against our Korean heros at the finals - Koreans who were mostly unaware that a fan base existed abroad. These were the days when we banded together to watch choppy and unreliable 240p streams, scoured Korean sites for VODs and had multi day results spoiler rules, lest someone hadn't downloaded the vods (on torrent) yet. I feel truly blessed to have been able to watch this site grow into the powerhouse it is today. TL is a central hub of our industry and will enjoy an important place in esports history - i'm proud to have had helped out.
On May 21 i'll assume a new role at ESL in Cologne, Germany as a Product Manager for WCS EU (SC2) and Raidcall EMS One (Dota2) - projects i expect to be some of the most challenging and exciting in my esports career so far. I'm excited to join the rest of the ESL team in growing these great projects.
After evaluating my options around the industry, i was really impressed by the minds who are driving ESL forward and within just a few days we realized that it was a match that made sense. Moving to Germany is quite a large life change, and i hope it is demonstration of the confidence i have in the company going forward.
Since i will be working with the team on the WCS and EMS projects, Hotbid, Naz and I decided that it would be best if i became a regular user rather than retiring to blue (which is the usual course for step downs from active staff). I haven't not been able to ban someone since 2008 - i expect i will have favors to call in ;D .
There's a lot of important work to be done in both WCS and EMS One, and i'm really excited to be able to have a hand in the futures of both.
I look forward to seeing many of you at events in the future.
Love
Kennigit