Georgina Owens Interview Brochure

GEORGINA O W E N S

INNOVATION IN BALANCE GEORGINA OWENS, CTO AT 888 WILLIAM HILL, TALKS ABOUT THE EVOLVING ROLE OF TECHNOLOGY IN ORGANISATIONS, KEEPING PLAYERS SAFE, AND THE CRITICAL NEED FOR MORE DIVERSITY IN THE INDUSTRY. SUPPORTED BY:

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“Change is everything. I love it,” says Georgina Owens, current CTO at British gambling company 888 William Hill.

“It gets me out of bed in the morning, thinking about how we’re going to adapt and evolve in an ever-changing landscape in so many ways, from a financial, commercial, technology, and people perspective.”

Owens is, as you can tell, a massive advocate for change, and her substantial career mirrors this. She has worked in technology for many years in leadership

positions across multiple different industries, working with a variety of sizes of teams and responsibilities. “Essentially, I look at cross technology functions around engineering.

Working across different sectors means I understand key elements of a business, which transforms and changes how it makes you think as a leader.

“A big change in technology leadership is the requirement for you to be much more commercially focused than what you ever were before.”

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So, what inspired Owens to pursue this exciting career?

Her family – who moved to Africa when she was six – came back to the UK in the middle of her informative education years, “which essentially screwed me up. So, I had to look for something, and it just so happened that there was a technology path I was able to take. So, I kind of fell into it. I’ve been very lucky – opportunities have just always arisen,” Owens says.

“I’ve done architecture, coding, and strategy.

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across different areas of technology. I then discovered that in the process of doing that, I really liked building teams, mentoring, and coaching people. And I was good at it.

I was able to see problems, fix them and take the team with me. That’s what’s led me into more leadership roles,” she explains.

And in her leadership style, especially in the dynamic and rapidly evolving field of tech, Owens says adapting it “to minimise impact on people, or at least to take the time to help support them through the change, is important.

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“Change comes in many different flavours and from every direction, and we must deal with that. I thrive on it.”

solutions for your business, you must know all the options. And having a diverse team enables you to do that,” she says.

ELEMENTS OF DIVERSITY

“And that’s diverse from a gender, culture, and ethnicity point of view. There are so many different elements of diversity,” she adds.

Something else that Owens thrives on is being an advocate for diversity and inclusion: “There is no doubt that diverse thinking gives a better result. Thinking and doing the same is not good for business.

“Not everybody in your team thinks in the same way. Your customers all think differently.

Therefore, when you are contemplating

However, Owens says that the industry is encountering a problem. “I was talking to a group of people recently and we feel that gender diversity is not improving. If anything, it’s going backwards. There are more females leaving the industry than joining.

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P H O T O: DY L A N G ILL I S

“I’m unsure as to the cause,” she comments.

“I find it all very sad. I think it became a bit worn out, a bit overused, and people have just gone, ‘Oh yeah, gender diversity, we’ve got to do it”.

She gives an example: “Recruiters are all about a diverse pipeline. What they’re not about is then following that diverse pipeline through – how many candidates were successful? However, the measurement is stopping at the pipeline.

“I was challenging a recruitment agent that was talking to me about, ‘Oh, diversity, they’d really like to have female candidates.’

And I said ‘Why? Where do they want female candidates? How far is that going?

How far are you taking that in terms of the process?’” she says.

“A big change in technology leadership is the requirement for you to be much more commercially focused than what you ever were before.”

Owens comments that at William Hill, it’s tough because they’re in a sports gambling environment, so it’s not necessarily the first place that females will choose to join.

“I’m spending more time being visible, which is hard. Balancing home, work, external visibility, and involvement is hard.

It’s much easier to just go, ‘Oh, I can’t be bothered. I haven’t got time.’”

However, she sees that her role could be inspiring for the next generation.

“Role models are critical, and I have spoken to a lot of women coming into the industry.

For them, seeing a senior woman in technology makes them believe it’s possible to have opportunities.

Owens would ask any woman in technology to try hard to get involved and be visible, as it’s only by being visible that other women will consider it a good path to follow.

“Starting at an early age – if you’ve got daughters, how can you show them that

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Owens discusses a call she had the morning of our interview: “I was just looking at a sea of faces and it was all men,” she says.

“And it hit me just how many times that happens. So, getting women involved is not going to be straightforward or easy, but it’s worthwhile.

“Build yourself a network of like-minded people who can support you, because that is critical,” she comments.

PLAYER SAFETY Another critical element for Owens in her leadership and teams is like-minded company culture. “It’s important we have collaboration, that we do not have toxic behaviour, and that we are open, honest,

“Change comes in many different flavours and from every direction, and we must deal with that. I thrive on it.”

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working in technology is positive, enjoyable, and not geeky? However, you must be honest and let them know that in the industry, you won’t necessarily be surrounded by people like you,” she advises.

and transparent with each other within my teams.” She also encourages them to display that same behaviour consistently when they’re interacting with other teams.

“By osmosis, that will change the rest of the organisation. Anybody in my team knows that if they see something they dislike, if they feel uncomfortable or unsafe, they can come and talk directly to me.

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P H O T O: M A P B OX

“I will not walk by,” Owens says proudly.

Something else she takes pride in, is the technical innovations and projects that are consistently released by William Hill, all with player safety in mind.

“We are constantly bringing out new, exciting features for customers.

“Now, the real challenge for player safety is, if you think about it, what we’re doing is exciting them and encouraging them to use our products more and more,” Owens explains. “But at the same time, we can’t go over the top because we don’t want it to be so exciting that they get addicted and spend beyond their means.

“A large part of our innovation is balance,” she says.

RESPONSIBLE REGULATION “So, there’s a lot about the brand explaining that we work hard to make gambling safe,” she says, reinforcing that the company’s top focus is player safety and ensuring people do not get addicted, “that they do it for fun and know when to stop.

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“Explaining all that is what made me okay to join the company, because it’s not a bad thing. It can be good. It’s great for people to have fun, and that’s what this needs to be,” she reckons.

There are many roles within the organisation responsible for player safety, and there are licences to ensure regulations are followed – Owens is a licence holder for technology.

“The regulations in gambling are huge, complicated, and require a lot of time and effort to make sure we are meeting those regulations.

“We live and breathe that on a day-by-day basis,” she says. “Although we have people who are specifically responsible compliance managers, the rest of us have that responsibility and we take it very seriously,” Owens adds.

Another serious component in the organisation is partnerships. “The size and scale of what we deliver is huge around gaming and sports betting,” Owens comments.

“Gaming encompasses casino, poker, and slots, and is mostly online, although we have all those available in our retail outlets.

So, the games we provide are vast.

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“I think we’ve got over 1,400 games.”

“Role models are critical, and I have spoken to a lot of women coming into the industry.

For them, seeing a senior woman in technology makes them believe it’s possible to have opportunities.”

So, with constant innovation, accelerating technology, and multiple partnerships, what does Owens think is the future of William Hill, and the gambling industry as a whole?

“There will be more and more regulation,” she says. “From a business commercial point of view, that is challenging for us as we constantly find new restrictions that reduce our ability to expand the business. Now we work with the regulation. We have an incredible relationship with them.

“We must work with all regulators in the regulated markets for each country we operate in, to understand where they’re heading. We must convince them that we can still offer customers good and safe experiences that can be enjoyable and seen as entertainment without being a danger,” Owens concludes.

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“In the William Hill part of the business, we have a partner, OpenBet. We’ve been working with them for over 14 years now,

“OpenBet helps us with the millions and millions of customers we have across the UK and Europe. They have a great reputation for performance around very big events like Cheltenham. One of their showcases is enabling us to process thousands of bets per minute,” she says.

G EO R G I N A O W E N S

Owens says that William Hill builds some games, but also works with third parties.

“The race is always to get the top game for people to have the best experience.

and they’ve helped us to grow and build our betting engine.