Astralis CEO Nikolaj Nyholm steps down

4-10-2024 14:42

The former CEO will remain as a member of the board.

Nikolaj Nyholm has been part of Astralis Group for over five years

Astralis have announced that co-founder Nikolaj Nyholm is stepping down from his role as CEO. He will remain as a board member. Astralis' previous CFO, Jakob Hansen, will take over as interim CEO.

The news comes in the wake of a string of controversies that struck the Danish team in the last year. Questions were raised over their conduct in the transfers of Jakob "⁠jabbi⁠" Nygaard and Martin "⁠stavn⁠" Lund from HEROIC late in 2023, and more recently the team was heavily criticised over their use of Casper "⁠cadiaN⁠" Møller as an emergency substitute for BLAST Fall Final.

Astralis got cadiaN in for the Fall Final on an emergency sub. Was it against the rules?

Nikolaj Nyholm entered the Counter-Strike space as co-founder of RFRSH Entertainment, the company that originally owned and operated BLAST Pro Circuit (later BLAST Premier) and Astralis, and had ties to HEROIC and GODSENT.

RFRSH agrees to sell Astralis

The Dane departed RFRSH Entertainment when the company sold Astralis to the newly-founded Astralis Group ApS in 2019, assuming the role of CEO at the new company. The move to split the ownership of Astralis and BLAST came amidst criticism of potential conflicts of interest.

oh, no. anyway.

2024-10-04 14:43

684

21 replies

Too much controversy under his leadership, hope things changes for the better now

2024-10-04 14:47

11 replies

the fact that he they still want him on the board tells me they don't want to change, i don't think astralis will be any different under the new ceo

2024-10-04 14:48

173

10 replies

it could also be that they don't want to pay a truck load of money to get rid of him

2024-10-04 15:30

5 replies

I really doubt there is a single decent human being in astralis board, it's probably just pr move

2024-10-04 15:53

4 replies

they're investors mostly so you're absolutely right. Investors will eventually destroy the original image of a company in the search for the absolute maximum profit

2024-10-04 20:18

Dude, you don't demote the ceo for pr reasons. If you've ever been close to c-level in any moderste size business.you know, that such a move is a very drastic thing to do. There are great ramifications for the business, the investprs, the sponsors, the fans and not least for the actual humans involved.

2024-10-04 21:32

2 replies

Dude, almost everyday a CEO gets demoted for pr reasons. Offering the CEO's head is a gesture to the market that changes in business philosophy are undergoing.

2024-10-04 23:17

1 reply

It might be so in other countries, but I don't think you understand how business culture is in Denmark and the rest of Scandinavia

2024-10-05 23:00

To be objective, Astralis' current roster as a result of stepped down CEO is very good, they just need some time for Cadian to rebuild his perfect structure as it was in Heroic, while they've always been winning contenders

2024-10-04 15:45

Don't know, man... Kinda lost faith. In CS2 it seems that every player dropped a bunch in rating... And stavns opening/entrying last 6 months looks abyssimal.. Which I think is why the rest of the team is having to do all the "heavy lifting" i.e. entey/opening. I once read somewhere that when you have first frag there's 75% chance to take the round. Now none of them with green ratings..

2024-10-06 16:50

yea he's probably just a scapegoat

2024-10-04 15:52

Yeah, feels like they took a step they had to take after all the controversies but didn't wanna make too big of a step at the same time.

2024-10-04 16:42

how will we recover from this great tragedy...

2024-10-04 14:56

3 replies

He's literally still board member, not fired.

2024-10-04 16:09

never stated otherwise 👍

you cant. racism is wide spread on earth....

2024-10-05 22:33

Lol

2024-10-04 15:21

imgur.com/gallery/hitler-is-dead-may-1-1..

2024-10-04 15:24

every empire will rise and Fall, eventually

2024-10-04 15:33

Astralis ERA 2.0 Starting 2025. ToTheStars!!!

2024-10-05 05:16

phahahahahahahahahahhaaha

GOOD FCKING RIDDANCE

Except that this doesn't mean anything. He is still member of the board, which can be even more powerful. Stepping down as CEO is a political move to gaslight NPCs. He's still here, getting paid and has big influence.

2024-10-04 16:03

yeah he just stops working but has the same power :D:D!

2024-10-04 17:57

What do you mean stops? It literally says he remains on the board Plus CEOs are not the ones doing the job lol, as the guy pointed out

2024-10-05 22:38

yeah, rare astralis w

2024-10-04 22:32

Expected 😂

2024-10-04 14:44

expected

unfit to be CEO

140

they should get carlos as emergency sub

2024-10-04 16:53

9 replies

congrats, you found the one person who would be even worse

2024-10-04 17:26

8 replies

But hey, his org was winning all the time. Astralis irrelevant and causing drama at the same time

2024-10-04 17:27

Respect top C

2024-10-04 17:47

tell me in your own words, why is carlos bad?

2024-10-04 17:59

being friends with someone who is a rapist and human trafficker should be more than enough reason

2024-10-04 18:30

which friend of his is rapist and human trafficker?

2024-10-04 18:31

i think hes talking about andrew tate

2024-10-04 19:16

ah i see. it all makes sense now. his comments + political views + flair its like he is the definition of twitter user

2024-10-04 19:19

go back to echo chamber reddit

2024-10-06 01:14

wtf

Expected, Deserved, Benched, Humbled

#69

2024-10-04 16:04

Nikolaj Lieholm

Will they hire Heroic CEO?

2024-10-04 14:45

Surely, bros been in academy team too long

omg :D:D!

2024-10-04 18:02

leaving the sinking ship

Best thing that could happen to scumstralis, no doubt that this was related to some sort of behind the scenes scandal this asshole will try to cover up

'He will remain as a board member' interesting...

2024-10-04 14:46

He owns a considerable amount of stocks in the company I reckon

2024-10-04 14:49

rip bozo

YAY :D

lol, lmao even

Bro is cooked 😂

Reputation is still unsalvageable

he deserved

+ ceo heroic?

2024-10-04 14:51

kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

2024-10-04 14:52

Step Ceo noooooo

2024-10-04 14:54

HAHAH NOO WAY

2024-10-04 14:55

nothing changed. he just wont be the face anymore but still gonna do stupid decisions for the org. hell, he'll be the one suggesting them instead of accepting them now.

2024-10-04 14:59

+1 PR move. He didn't leave the company at all. They try to ameliorate the image of the company, nothing more.

2024-10-04 15:23

h.... dead

2024-10-04 15:00

how long until he works at BLAST?

hahahahaahahahaha

2024-10-04 15:01

thank god

cool flair

2024-10-04 16:26

Would prefer to not have him at the board at all though.

2024-10-04 15:03

Yeah, he will still do his dirty moves, without been the CEO. For me, it doesn't change much.

2024-10-04 15:22

If this company wants to become accepted by the public again they need a ceo from outside the company, maybe heroic ceo?

2024-10-04 15:05

Kassad

2024-10-04 16:12

Getting the boot, because they've been caught too much under him as CEO. Gotta find someone who can get their dirt done more secretly.

2024-10-04 15:06

leaving the sinking ship?

2024-10-04 15:08

He's not leaving the company

2024-10-04 15:14

Cheh

2024-10-04 15:15

GJ Analis

2024-10-04 15:18

Massive W

2024-10-04 15:20

Oh man, that's a big moment. Now, Astralis can change drastically ... Oh, wait, he is still a member of the board .... nothing will changed, except better PR.

I'm not convinced that things at Astralis will change but time will tell

2024-10-04 15:26

noone gives a shit about astralis

2024-10-04 15:34

Still one of the biggest orgs in CS. :*

2024-10-04 15:37

No it's not...

2024-10-04 15:41

In the past yeah, in recent years, not really

2024-10-04 16:00

Money wise they are one of the biggest orgs.

2024-10-04 22:49

Few years too late, it will take a very long time for the org to gain any credibility or trust from the community. Too many players had their careers tanked by this clowns management. W for astralis.

You know he wasn't the CEO until January this year, right? His title was Co-founder/chairman between 2020 & January this year. The CEO was Anders Hørsholt, who's now the strategic advisor.

2024-10-04 22:54

Astralis wins 4 majors then build a $50+ million dollar center for gaming. One of the most advanced eSport centers in the world. Then boom, all the sudden they start losing and now their CEO steps-down. I'm willing to bet they will sell Astralis Nexus to someone in the next year because they are losing money and cannot keep it running.

With GigachadiaN at the helm they gonna win every major now and make billions

2024-10-04 16:13

Didn't Astralis get 13-0'd in their very first map with cadiaN?

2024-10-06 04:17

Maybe he can revive Spirit of Amiga! ? youtube.com/watch?v=DgwpKhGywrk

When I got introduced to CS, it was at an internet café in Odense. Crashjack practically lived there. Getting to play with or against him and the other guys from SoA was the pinnacle of cs coolnes back then.

2024-10-05 13:15

Haha yes it was so much fun, I loved playing against Crashjack, Rizzeren, Atterman, Rom etc. on Jubii servers, until some crazy admin banned me thinking I was using wallhack :( I never knew until a few days ago that there were two internet cafes in Odense fighting each other :D

2024-10-05 13:44

Hopefully he will be pushed off the board as well sometime. Few people have singlehandedly displayed such an utter lack of decency or moral capacity as this man in esports. Will go down in history as an utterly despised, shallow husk of an excuse as a person. I fully believe he has irreparably damaged Astralis beyond repair at this point. I hope it was worth it Nyholm. You are an abject failure of a man and symbol of the rot present in esport. As the CEO you have been granted responsibility for every failure - hopefully that failure starts and ends with you.

2024-10-04 15:50

He wasn't even the CEO until January 2024. His predecessor was Anders Hørsholt and he held that position for 4 years. Calm down lil bro.

2024-10-04 22:56

CEO for refresh entertainment which owned blast, became CEO in 2019 which was a requirement for his split with refresh. He was the puppet master for the destruction of danish counter strike and the franchise rot with blast, royal arena and the danish government. Oversaw the rot of danish counter strike with the takedown of heroic. As CEO he takes the bulk of responsibility. hltv.org/news/27506/rfrsh-agrees-to-sell.. But yea seems like he was not CEO in some timeframe after 2019 and now, but he was: - "Chairman of the Board of Astralis Esport ApS (since March 2020)". Which is basically bigger than a CEO. The conclusion can only be that nothing will change yes.

2024-10-05 13:17

Also leeches like him most likely just did this to avoid more public lynching and get another face on the disasterclass he will continue to puppeteer behind the scenes. I highly doubt anything will change as long as he stays anywhere near esports.

2024-10-05 13:10

I'm not refuting anything you said but the Astralis problem goes deeper than Nikolaj Nyholm. The Anders guy was scummy too and he's their strategic advisor currently. They basically recycle trash. I remember people getting excited when it was announced that Nikolaj Nyholm was taking the CEO position in January. Turns out it's the same monkeys but different forest. And just like you said, we can't expect any change.

2024-10-05 15:46

Very true, but seeing that he was involved with all the moving parts of the blast, refresh and now astralis tomfoolery that's an easy target to slander. And slander he does deserve. I think you're right that there has to be a whole team of grifters there to make it all run smoothly. Otherwise surely people would not stand for it. But clearly they all do. Whomever is in charge in whatever business surrounding astralis and their esports ventures. Just the next guy on the chopping block to take all the shit next time astralis inevitably pisses everyone off again and gets away with it.

2024-10-06 18:12

Welcome to falcoons Nikolaj Nyholm

Finnaly

2024-10-04 15:56

Remain on board… so basicly less work and less acountibility for same money

2024-10-04 15:59

Since he stepped down, can I be Astralis' CEO?

2024-10-04 16:05

good

2024-10-04 16:18

Rumours are he was waiting for de_train but couldn't do it any longer.

Since the prime Astralis disbanded, the obvious downfall started. They tried to invest into League, but some reason they didn't cash in enough to pick up some star player and make a decent contender team, while for example TL has 3 korean, 1 korean with American citizenship and 1 american in the roster, or NIP has LPL team, BIG, Z10 and some notable t2-3 team has also pretty decent, contender teams.

2024-10-04 16:23