Galaxy Racer NA CEO, Akemi Sue Fisher, on how HERGalaxy aims to provide a safe space and equal opportunities for women in esports

Galaxy Racer recently expanded into North America. They also announced the Amazon Queen, Akemi Sue Fisher, as the CEO. Aiming to provide a platform for women to safely grow and build their audience, HER Galaxy is a new brand that hopes to bring inclusivity and provide backing in North America.

Esports.gg's Rohan Samal spoke to Akemi Sue Fisher, a few weeks after this announcement. When asked about her journey as the Amazon Queen, she lit up in enthusiasm. It all started in 2015. But before that she didn't even know what an Amazon seller was. Today, she has done more than $ billion in sales and even helped several other businesses grow to seven, eight and nine figures.

This article was powered by Women in Games International.

Coming from a mega-successful ecommerce background, Akemi Sue Fisher has now taken on the role of Galaxy Racer NA CEO. She has a clear objective, to provide a safe environment for women to grow. HER Galaxy, Galaxy Racer's new brand, will focus on providing ample resources and opportunities for women to grow in this industry.

“In 2015, I had influencer marketing agency and I got referred three Amazon Seller in the same week. I was like 'What's an Amazon seller'?"

Before she joined Galaxy Racer, Fisher was already a renowned name in ecommerce. The beginning of her Amazon journey is an exciting one, one that highlights her ability to grasp the opportunity and the hard work that led to her successful career. Continuing to tell the story of the start of her Amazon journey, she speaks about the first opportunity that came her way, all the way back in 2015.

"But I knew good things must be happening there cause in the same week three people were referred to me. So one of the guys actually lived in Tampa where I lived. And he was a retired ex-cop and he was selling bike lights on Amazon, making millions of dollars a year.

And the light bulb went off and I said 'Hmm, this seems interesting. If people are shopping. this attentively for bike lights, what else are they shopping for?’”

Her journey as the Amazon Queen, an author and business coach might have started with an opportunity. But her consistent hard work that was one of the biggest reasons for her meteoric growth. This initiative and the determination to build something big saw Fisher make a name for herself in ecommerce. But now, she has joined Galaxy Racer esports, some would say, in a vastly different industry.

She's here to make a difference and to provide a safe space for women in gaming. She's here to build a community and she has some experience doing just that.

Today, she is one of the most trusted e-commerce brand consultants helping businesses scale up. She’s helped numerous companies expand their business, all while also running a successful one herself.

What others view as a difference, Fisher believes is just another opportunity. It's an opportunity for her. An emerging market with a near 50% share of women but just 1% competing. In 2021, in the US, there 45% of gamers were women, according to a Statista report with a similar number of women in Asia (Nikopartners)

"And when I look at how much Amazon has grown from when I got onboard, it's amazing. When I started speaking to Paul and what was going on here at Galaxy Racer, I saw the same opportunity here. I saw that this was an emerging market, I saw that women were half of the gamers in the world and yet there were 1% competing. I saw the same opportunity and so. There's so much opportunity to bridge the gap and awareness around esports for women. “

Akemi Sue Fisher has her priorities set as she takes on this new opportunity. One of her first objectives and by far, one of the most important ones, is ensuring a safe space and providing equal opportunities for women in esports. She has a personal connection to this goal, that is to be a leading example for her daughter.

“So my heart first and foremost is all about women and women empowerment. I have a 12-year-old daughter and so any decisions I make at this point in my life and in my career are really moves that are centered around how am I going to impact women around the world and how am I going to be a leading example for my daughter. 

And so this was just a prayer from God and something that the universe because my heart was moving into how I would support women in the bigger role and this opportunity came about and I couldn't be more excited about it.”

Last month, Galaxy Racer announced its expansion, bringing the gaming and lifestyle organization to North America. Accompanying the announcement was the brand HER Galaxy, a grassroots esports initiative to provide an inclusive ecosystem for women gamers. HER Galaxy aims to bring resources and sponsorship opportunities to women in gaming.

Coming in from a non-esports background, one of the first questions many fans have is about her experience in gaming. Does she play video games? Which games does she play?

"Yes, it's funny. Everyone asks me that and many were surprised", she says when asked about her gaming experience.

Excited about showing off her experience playing video games, Fisher rattled off a list of games she's been playing since childhood. And it is a very exhaustive ranging from Sega Genesis to Wordle. Her gaming activities could put a few of the die hard fans to shame.

“I played everything from Mario Cart. I'll tell you the top games my brother had played - Mario Cart, Sonic the Hedgehog, Sega Genesis, Mike Tyson's Punchout. I played video games with my older brother and then my mom is actually a PC gamer. When I was in high school, I used to fight her for the computer so I could actually do my homework and kick her off the computer.

My husband is a huge gamer as well. He is so happy that I'm in this space because this is like a dream come true for him. 

You know my daughters, loves games as well. She and I play Worlde nowadays. But she plays Toka and Roblox and whatever all the kids are playing now too. We play Jackbox on the TV too as a family. On Thanksgiving and Christmas and all the holidays, our family gathers around the board and play as we eat.

We are a very competitive gaming family even board games. We play Dominos, on my front dining room table we have an ongoing scrabble board where everyday we are doing words, we are a big gaming family. “

She’s been playing games all her life, and she believes she has the right skill-set to help her achieve her goals. Leading Galaxy Racer in North America, Akemi Sue Fisher has quite a lot of experience building communities and helping others grow as her company scales up. She's done this in ecommerce and she believes she has the right mentality to do this in esports.

"Community building first and foremost. Building brand awareness, brand recognition, storytelling. Brands tell stories, I thought it was really cool looking at Galaxy Racer and just how diverse and inclusive they were. Stories inside of our organization were just so unique and then the opportunity to bring that here in NA and be able to tell so many new stories and support so many other new dreams gets me excited and gets me out of bed everyday."

But every new venture has its share of challenges. Be it competition from existing esports teams (and there are quite a lot of big teams in NA), or how the community accepts them. But Akemi Sue Fisher believes, the real challenge here is to scale the opportunity, to bridge the gap and innovate how to achieve those goals.

"I think the challenge here is really the opportunity. That there's such a huge gap. There's so much education awareness in the world still to be built. There's so much inclusivity that can still happen especially for women and being able to be that voice and give women a seat at the table and an opportunity here with our platform and what we're doing at HER Galaxy is what really really excited me the most."

Entering a new market, especially one that is extremely competitive as North America is a difficult task. There are well-known teams such as 100Thieves, Sentinels, Cloud9, Envy and more with a several years of esports history. But the Amazon Queen feels there is space for everyone to grow. She lists her experience working with Amazon sellers as an example of how working together can help the entire industry grow.

"Well you know, we're the new kid on the block and so obviously and there's room for all of us. The Amazon community, I come from a very collaborative space. And so, while I am competitive, I was always three steps ahead of my competitors and I will be here as well. I think there's massive opportunities to collaborate, some of the messages I've gotten since I've started are just men and women who are in this space, excited to see what new energy, new pathways I can build. Having a fresh set of eyes in this industry and just seeing just other ways to build any type of new venture, I think is just really exciting here."

Despite esports' potential, there are still many teams that fail to monetize their brand. The lack of monetization can often eat away at an org’s finances.

“Coming in, everyone has that 'it's hard to monetize'. But given my background and track record I'm sure I'll find many other ways to monetize. But we're going to focus on gaming ofcourse and creators.

With my experience and background in ecom, I have even before coming on to Galaxy Racer, I would have creators coming to me all the time about how to build their own brand. And so now we have the opportunity to support and guide and help them build their brands whether it be a makeup brand, merchandising company, a lifestyle brand, whatever it is, I have the experience and the knowhow to do that as well.”

“We are going to build out an inclusive ecosystem for women. Sponsorship opportunities are huge here. I was actually shocked to see there weren't a ton of brands that invested in sponsorship in female gamers. So we have a huge opportunity there and I plan on really building out our story for these brands to get involved and to elevate these incredible women and also give them a seat on our platform with tournaments. It's about giving them a platform that feels safe for women.

Making esports a safe space entails multiple fronts. Twitch, where women have to face daily harassment offers some power in the form of blocking people or banning them from one’s channel. But the same control is not available inside video games. Several PC games are notorious for players’ behavior towards women. 

“So interesting when I really thought about that. With the emergence of technology such as AI and how there's voice recognition, I would hope we are all building and developing games now that you could block that. But hopefully collectively, we could work together and raise our voices against this. That would be amazing for so many women.”

Collectively raising voices and awareness is something that we can do on a daily basis. Ensuring that women feel safe to play a game, to come in voice chat and communicate the enemy’s location should be a priority for everyone. HER Galaxy aims to play a major role in ensuring equality of genders in esports. 

"We just want to hear from our community. We're here to listen and to make this entire community, what we're doing, what we're building, better for everyone. So please contact us! Also as we're building out this team, we are looking for top talent, so please contact Hergalaxy.gg if you are interested in growing and building our big team because we have some really monstrous plans here and I can't wait to share. I'm looking forward to incredible people to joining us."

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