Entain boss builds technology army to expand digital products
Many of us started new jobs during the pandemic. However, in an industry under intense regulatory pressure, anyone who acquired a company during a lockdown during a takeover bid weeks after the business announced a strategic overhaul and brand change. There were few.
when Jette Nygaard-Andersen Appointed CEO of EntainA London-listed gambling group, she had the additional challenge of taking over Shay Segev, the successor chosen by the company’s founder. ShaySegev played that role for only seven months.
Still, 52-year-old Dane doesn’t seem to be faint in what others might consider to be a confused promise.
“Sure, I didn’t expect Shay to resign.[but]When you get a call from your chair, you certainly answer “yes”. Let’s sit down and chat, “she says.
Nygaard-Andersen has been a board member of Entain for over a year.Segef resigned Do the top job On the much higher-paying sports streaming platform DAZN, people near the company said. The “call” was in the midst of a Christmas holiday a few days before US casino group MGM announced a £ 8 billion offer to Entain, but the company’s board rejected it.
By the time Nygaard-Andersen takes on her role in January, MGM, which operates a joint venture with Entain in the United States, will Withdrew their offer.. “I knew the situation, but I also knew the wonderful future of the company,” said Nygaard-Andersen, who decided to expand Entain’s traditional sports betting business into new markets with the withdrawal of MGM. There was a sense of security that I was able to concentrate. Various forms of virtual entertainment.
As many doubt, if MGM returns in another takeover attempt later this year, she says, it’s a “discussion between the board and shareholders.”
Following the approach of headhunters, Nygaard-Andersen joined bookmakers Ladbrokes and Coral and Entain, which owns the online gambling brand Bwin, as a non-executive director in December 2019. With 25 years of experience in the media industry, she was brought in to shape the company’s strategy and brand change from GVC to Entain. This is an effort to reinvent the group after its founder. Kenny AlexanderA gambling executive who owns an old school racehorse resigned in 2020.
The company has identified the “four pillars” of growth. New digital products such as core sports betting and gambling businesses, the newly regulated US market, countries that are about to legalize betting, and esports.
Nygaard-Andersen resumed where Segev was interrupted, but didn’t have the luxury of meeting colleagues in each of the company’s 27 regions.
“I had to use what I had, my platform, the same platform I’m talking to you, so I had to think differently. “She says in a video call from her home in Copenhagen. She determined that the most important thing was good communication and goal selection. “If you only have a virtual platform, you have to be very focused. I chose two things: one for customers and one for interactive entertainment.”
Historically, gambling companies were not famous for customer service. In the UK, a review of gambling legislation is underway, following a campaign to pursue addicted customers and blame businesses for profit. She hopes that pressure to show regulators that the industry can provide technical solutions to gambling addiction through one-on-one interventions while customers are playing will change the way the sector is perceived.
“If you really start thinking … You can see that using technology to enable personalized protection for each player is ahead of many other industries,” she says.
Entain has developed a program called “Advance Responsibility and Care”. It uses artificial intelligence to flag problematic gambling behavior and send a prompt to stop the gambler when it reaches a certain threshold. The company has invested £ 20 million in responsible gambling, which is for companies that last year reported pre-tax profit, interest, depreciation and pre-amortization profit of £ 843 million. It states that there are few.
Nygaard-Andersen says the investment will be more than that, including the time spent improving Entain’s platform. She admits that she has learned a difficult way to put customers first. In 2012, she launched a streaming platform called Viaplay while working for the Swedish media company MTG. Then Netflix came along. Viaplay had a “huge suite” of content and great technology, but lacked a “deep understanding of the consumer experience” of US companies.
Nygaard-Andersen claims that after 22 consecutive quarters of double-digit online growth, Entain can be categorized alongside “Netflix, Pelotons and Facebook in the world,” but to stay there, technology She says she needs to stay ahead of the changes. And the impact it has on consumer behavior.
Entain’s boss uses streaming as an analogy as a reason to push gambling companies into other entertainment areas. She points out that the transition to on-demand streaming has been rapid since the late 1990s, when telephone game shows were in the range of interactive TV. “I need to think about how it will be relevant in 5 years and how it will remain relevant in 10 years, which drives thinking about interactive entertainment and new areas. “
Three Questions to Jet Nigor Andersen
Leadership hero Malala Yousafzai
Who is your leadership hero?
Will be Malala [Yousafzai].. She is very inspiring and as a human rights defender focused on education for women and children around the world, if she really intends to change the really big challenges we face as a planet, it’s definitely Really recreate my belief that it starts with doing everyone has a good education.
What if you weren’t the CEO of Entain?
I will probably do the same in another industry. I’m growing up where I am right now. There are opportunities to grow in the industry, to innovate, to expand the platform, and to really evolve as a business.
What is your most important leadership lesson?
I think the first is to listen and open your heart. That’s also the most difficult, but there’s a reason why it has two ears and one mouth. During the pandemic, I often thought that I wanted to lead through context, not control. That is, it sets the context for where you want to go and provides all the information your team needs to make the right decisions. This was important during the pandemic.
Entain has hired 2,000 people in its technology team over the past 14 months, tripled its size, and piloted a virtual reality “sports club” on Verizon Media later this year. The company is also working to integrate sports match statistics and analysis into a live video stream, seeking to enter the fast-growing esports sector that Nygaard-Andersen has been involved with since 2015.
This week, Entain will host Capital Markets Day, allowing the CEO to embody her plans.As one of the two women who are the leaders of large sports betting groups, the other Denise Coats, Founder of Bet365 — Nygaard-Andersen also says he wants to push the gambling industry into another unfamiliar area: recruiting and educating more women.
Entain’s technology workforce is 30% female, about twice the sector average, and donates $ 250,000. Girl writing code, A non-profit organization that supports women in the high-tech industry. In February, the company launched a training scheme through the University of Nevada to encourage more women to work in this area.
Of course, there is an element of self-interest. “I am confident that I am the best in the industry and will achieve the ambitions needed to have the best talent and duration,” says Nygaard-Andersen.
And the best is not the Danish executives who gave up playing video games Counter strike She wasn’t fast enough, so it takes lightly. “I like to win,” she says. “I really like to win.”
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