People news 4 August 2016
The latest people news from the egaming industry in the last seven days (29 July to 4 August 2016)
Tipico appoints former bwin director as new CCO
Marlon van der Goes to begin new role at the German operator on 1 August
Tipico has appointed former bwin.party director Marlon van der Goes as its chief commercial officer (CCO), eGaming Review can reveal.
Van der Goes, who started his new position on 1 August, will be responsible for improving the customer experience at the German operator.
“As a proven expert in marketing and sales strategy and after more than 10 years in leading positions at bwin.party group, Marlon now will drive the customer-oriented development of the Tipico brand,” a company spokesperson told EGR.
Van der Goes completed two separate stints at bwin, first as chief sales officer from 2004 to 2009 and then as a director from 2012 to the present day.
Genius Sports expands senior team with Couchmans partner hire
Genius Sports has strengthened its commercial team through the hire of recognised sports lawyer Steven Burton from law firm Couchmans.
Burton, who joins Genius Sports at the start of September, will lead the commercial side of the supplier’s Integrity Services division as it looks to expand its roster of integrity partnerships which currently includes the likes of the English Premier League and Major League Baseball.
The appointment will be seen as something of a coup for the recently rebranded sports data technology and distribution firm, with Burton having been both partner and head of Couchmans’ sports data, betting and integrity team.
Seven days in people news:
Derivco’s Wayne Mitchell joins IT specialist Viadex
Gaming software supplier Derivco’s former head of IT, Wayne Mitchell, has become the new global chief technology officer (CTO) of global IT virtual infrastructure firm Viadex.
Mitchell will be based at Viadex’s recently-opened offices in Singapore and will help the company create solutions for its worldwide customer base in sectors including online gaming and financial services.
“Having worked with the Viadex team for the last 12 years, I was looking for a new challenge and was excited about the prospect of extending my long standing relationship with the team,” Mitchell said.
“Viadex is an agile and dynamic company that helped me in my previous role at Derivco to transform how we interact and work with our IT partner.”
Norbert Teufelberger-led investment firm expands egaming portfolio
FastForward Innovations, the egaming-focused investment firm advised by former bwin.party chief executive Norbert Teufelberger, has expanded its portfolio with a US$500,000 (£380,000) investment in social games developer Moon Active.
The half-a-million dollar outlay equates to a 5.9% interest in the Tel Aviv-based developer, which FastForward said had also seen investment from a number of other high-profile egaming entrepreneurs.
Moon Active, which was founded in 2011, has developed five games since its inception and also built its own in-house infrastructure, machine learning based gameplay technology and in-game personalisation mechanics.