People news 7 January 2016
The latest people news from the egaming industry in the last seven days
Playtech and DLA Piper legal chiefs move to Wiggin
David McLeish and Stephen Ketteley join law firm as partners in its Betting & Gaming team
Playtech general counsel David McLeish is leaving the supplier to join law firm Wiggin in a double swoop which also sees DLA Piper partner Stephen Ketteley making a move to the media and technology specialists.
McLeish will become partner within Wiggin’s Betting & Gaming practice on 1 February, with his move following hot on the heels of the appointment of Ketteley, who joined the London-based firm at the start of this month.
Ketteley, who had led DLA Piper’s gaming arm, will co-head the practice alongside long-serving Wiggin partner Jason Chess, who in leading the team in recent years has built a client list which includes the likes of the Rational Group, IGT and the Perform Group.
Meanwhile Ketteley, who will be joined at Wiggin by DLA Piper associate Chris Elliott later this month, has been pre-eminent in the gaming industry for around a decade, working alongside major clients such as bet365 and William Hill.
Paddys and Lads comms chiefs join Senet board
The Senet Group has appointed Paddy Power director of corporate affairs Catherine Colloms and Ladbrokes group corporate communications director Donal McCabe to its board of directors.
The duo have replaced the outgoing Fiona Thorne of Gala Coral and David Steele of William Hill after the duo’s one-year term came to an end at the start of the year.
The new directors join a board comprised of Senet Group chair Wanda Goldwag and independent directors Suzanne McCarthy and Gillian Wilmot.
Seven days in people news:
Pinnacle Sports has appointed bet365’s performance marketing operations manager Alex Carr as its new affiliate program manager.
Carr joined Pinnacle this month after working for five years in various affiliate and performance marketing roles at bet365, including affiliates manager and affiliates operations manager.
“Alex brings a plethora of skills to Pinnacle Sports from his time with bet365 and he’s joining us at a very exciting stage in our evolution,” Harry Lang, Pinnacle marketing director, said.
The Industry Group for Responsible Gambling (IGRG) has appointed Harris Hagan as its new chairman.
Hagan, who took up the position on 1 January, is a founding partner of gambling law firm Harris Hagan and has advised many of the world’s largest gambling operators.
“I am delighted to be asked to ‘take up the baton’ from Barry Hardy and to continue the excellent work with the IGRG team,” Hagan said.
“IGRG has recently been incorporated, demonstrating the commitment from its members to continue to work together as a single body on shared key projects from their social responsibility agenda,” he added.
Betsson’s former head of analytics Philippe Guillod has joined Cherry as head of analytics and data science. He spent two-and-a-half years leading Betsson’s analytics team and previously spent time at Yahoo! as its EMEA digital marketing analytics manager.