William Hill Gets a Good Start to the New Year
Welcome to 2016 and hope it has been a smooth start for all! It certainly is the case with William Hill. Our regular readers will remember they acquired the former head of bingo at Mecca – Adam French (covered here) and we left last year pondering over how will this change the game for one of the biggest names in bookmaking worldwide.
It seems like this was just the beginning, with a lot more changes in the top ranks of the company coming into play here. The most recent of them – the hire of Despina Kokkaraki, who joins the team as head of customer strategies. The self-described “Greek living in London! Mad about all things digital.” is a senior digital professional in the fields of telecommunications, retail and travel, of course – gaming and customer relationship and experience management. She previously spent three years at Gamesys and five at O2/Telefonica – both giants in their respective industries. Ms. Kokkaraki speaks 5 languages and on top of her engagements in the gaming industry is also managing a number of travel/hotel booking projects – a truly talented and valuable addition to any team. So now that we have cleared who will be leading the area that most concerns us, players – the customer relations, let’s have a look at some more of the internal changes in the company.
“These changes will ensure William Hill continues to evolve the brand, increasing its focus on customer needs based on customer insights. […] We’ve pushed technology […] to increase engagement and talkability, and to promote our increasingly wide range of betting opportunities.”
Alex O’Shaughnessy, CMO at WIlliam Hill
Ex Vodafone and BT Head of marketing – Lisa Ravenscroft has been promoted from head of planning to head of brand strategy. Lisa is an Oxford graduate and a regular attendant of charity runs for Parkinson’s UK. Tom Warren was elevated from his position in the mobile team to head of marketing planning and strategy. Former Sky Betting marketing manager Pete Spiers (who’s been with William Hill since 2012) was appointed to head of advertising and content. And in case you are not totally lost in this head-swapping, there is some more. Some might remember William Hill’s ground-breaking deal from October last year with the Scottish FA and their sponsorship deal for the South Stand at Hampden Park. That was all thanks to Alex O’Shaughnessy, who now takes up the chief marketing officer role.
Well this is all very exciting news, let’s just sit back and watch the show. Being the biggest bookmaker on the UK market is a heavy crown to carry but judging from our own experience with the site they have been doing alright so far, so it can only get better! Wait and see, we will keep you posted.