International tournament organizer BLAST announced this week that it has appointed Charlie Cowdrey as the new chief executive officer of JioBLAST.
Prior to his promotion, Cowdrey was leading the company’s international Epic Games esports efforts for BLAST as the program director of Fortnite (FNCS) & Rocket League (RLCS) esports.
Cowdrey joined BLAST in early 2021 as a strategic associate to the CEO and was later promoted to chief of staff in early 2023. Prior to joining the company, he spent nearly four years at Deloitte London in various roles.
In his new role, Cowdrey will relocate from London to Mumbai, India, in September, to lead the company. In April, BLAST announced a joint venture with Reliance Industries Limited subsidiary RISE called JioBLAST to accelerate the growth of esports competitions in India.
JioBLAST hopes to bring BLAST esports properties and production techniques to India, co-create new tournament IPs tailored to the Indian market and its audience, and more. For its part, BLAST will support the deal by providing services to publishers and sponsors, end-to-end tournament management, targeted marketing, and production and broadcasting. The company will also work with Reliance subsidiary Jio Platforms Limited, one of India’s largest telecom operators, to provide the bandwidth needed to facilitate competitions.
“Charlie has been a key figure behind BLAST’s growth and publisher operations over the past few years,” said Robbie Douek, CEO of BLAST. “He is a trusted leader who understands our culture, our partners and our ambitions. India represents an enormous opportunity for BLAST, and we believe Charlie is the perfect person to take this vision forward. We’re proud to have someone of his calibre opening this important new chapter for us alongside our partners at Reliance and RISE.”