- Advance, and its American City Business Journals (ACBJ) subsidiary, have announced the formation of Leaders Group.
- The operating company will combine Advance’s B2B sports, esports, and gaming businesses; SportsBusiness Journal and SportsBusiness Daily, Leaders, Newzoo, and The Esports Observer.
- Warren S. Thune, who has held executive roles at Gartner and CEB, joins as CEO of Leaders Group.
Advance 
, along with its subsidiary ACBJ , have announced a new global B2B sports, esports and gaming intelligence platform, named Leaders Group. The operating company brings several Advance portfolio companies under one umbrella; SportsBusiness Journal and SportsBusiness Daily, Leaders, Newzoo , and The Esports Observer .
While all companies will continue under the same management teams, Advance has appointed Warren S. Thune as CEO of Leaders Group. Thune spent fourteen years in a series of executive roles at Gartner and CEB, eventually serving as group president, SaaS and Technology Enabled Services. Prior to Gartner, he was a senior partner at Oliver Wyman.
“Warren is a talented executive with a strong track record of building high performing teams and businesses,” said Whitney Shaw, CEO of ACBJ and co-founder of SportsBusiness Journal, who will become chairman of the newly established Leaders Group board of directors. “By combining our media, events and analytics holdings under a single corporate entity, we will be able to more effectively serve a customer base that is increasingly trying to understand how to best operate in a more technologically connected sports and entertainment ecosystem.”
For over 20 years, SportsBusiness Journal and SportsBusiness Daily have provided sports business real-time industry news and information, while Leaders is a London-based premium sports business conference and content platform. In October 2018, Advance acquired a majority stake in gaming analytics firm Newzoo, and completed its acquisition of The Esports Observer.
