Your career has taken that I’ve worked with Michael Silberling CEO at Affinity Gaming, LLC you to casinos in at is a powerful tool. least eight countries. What best practices You’ve worked on from overseas have and off for Caesars you tried to import to Entertainment. the U.S.? What aspects of its I have trouble corporate culture keeping track of all inform your work the different places today? that I’ve worked. I started at the Promus It’s been somewhat Companies, which opportunistic in that later became Harrah’s I do like seeing the Entertainment, which world, so I’ve seized later became Caesars opportunities to do Entertainment. A that in this business. data-driven business My first international is certainly something job was in Auckland, I took from Gary New Zealand, and we Loveman during his had never opened a leadership. Conducting casino in New Zealand, business with the so everybody that was utmost integrity is there was opening something that I the first casino in learned from Phil Satre on the North Island. during his tenure as We had people from CEO. Those are the South Africa, England, thematic pieces that Australia, the United come through. The States. The people majority of my career that succeeded there was with Caesars. It were the ones who realized there were different has informed a lot of people in the industry. You’ve ways to do business. And those who would listen got ex-Harrah’s with Tim Wilmott as CEO at Penn to the different points of view [of] like ‘How do you National Gaming, Anthony Sanfilippo as CEO of shuffle the cards,’ to the broader ones like ‘How Pinnacle Entertainment. It was a good business to do you design a restaurant’ or ‘What are customer learn the blocking and tackling, and core business tastes in different parts of the world’ were the skills. ones that were more successful in an international environment. So when I’ve gone to different How did you go about relaunching the Playboy continents, countries and locations – and I have casino in London? lived in London and Australia and New Zealand, and That was certainly an intersection of opportunity worked in Cairo and Lebanon and Johannesburg and and need. We had a business in the middle of Punta del Este [Uruguay] and Windsor, Canada – I Mayfair, which is an upscale area of London. We have tried to keep my eyes wide open to learn. I try were somewhat capital-constrained, given the to also think if I’ve seen an experience of how to capital structure of Caesars Entertainment. Playboy do something better. That two-way street of trying had a rich history in London in the casino business to learn and observe and understand what they’re and had exited London but I thought that brand still doing, and bringing the summation of lessons from resonated in Mayfair, having been a successful casino all these different locations and very wise people during the Sixties and Seventies. So I got a vibrant
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