Arkus Fredriksson is a 24-year-old leader and visionary strategist who has since 2016 been helping drive the sport and industry of chess forward as the Chief Strategy Officer of Play Magnus Group.
Since 2016, Arkus has played a pivotal role in raising nearly $100 million and organizing the company’s IPO in 2020. In 2021 Arkus focused on growing the popularity of chess around the world through the Champions Chess Tour and entertainment and content hub chess24. Directly through his partnership deals and indirectly through the businesses under his purview, the company has grown from a few hundred thousand in revenue bookings to ~$25M in 2021 and a run-rate target of $100M by the end of 2025. This growth led the Financial Times to deem Play Magnus Group the fastest growing gaming company and 27th overall in their FT 1000 list of the fastest growing companies in Europe.
Arkus began working in chess when he organized the first TEDx youth conference in Norway and invited his future CEO as a speaker. Shortly after, Arkus was one of the first employees to join Play Magnus, a company founded by World Chess Champion, Magnus Carlsen, to popularize one of the oldest sports in the world, chess.
While completing accelerated undergraduate studies in management and computer science at University College London and Columbia University, Arkus worked on business development, finance and sponsorships centered around Magnus Carlsen. After a brief stint in investment banking at Lazard, he returned to chess and began a multi-year M&A strategy that consolidated a significant proportion of the chess industry through 8 acquisitions, forming Play Magnus Group. By bringing together the most passionate founders, managers and employees as well as the most promising services and technologies, Arkus has played a pivotal role in modernizing the oldest sport in the world.
Since 2020, Arkus focused heavily on transforming the fragmented pro chess scene into one centralized circuit, the Champions Chess Tour, and developed the first professional rights agreements for players, introduced major commercial partners to the sport, and invented innovative new tournament formats.
Arkus secured many major global partners to the Champions Chess Tour, including Mastercard, PUMA, FTX, Meltwater, Secretlab and more. Many of these partners were major highlights not just to the Tour, but for the chess community as a whole which previously lacked the participation of global brands in the sport.
