A helping hand

Nicole Fields, SiGMA Vice President for Growth & Strategy

Global Gaming Women aids those seeking to move up in the casino realm. By David McKee

ounded in 2015, Global Gaming Women

F(GGW) provides mentorship for ladies seeking to advance their careers in fields within—or directly related to—the gaming industry. It aims to provide a broad range of peer-topeer relationships and forge ongoing connections. One of those who has benefited from its parenting is Nicole Fields, SiGMA Vice President for Growth & Strategy who shared some of her experiences with Casino Life. We started with the obvious query …

Why Global Gaming Women?

The most successful women know how valuable relationships are and they usually have built a strong network of people around them. It can be hard or intimidating for women to make connections, especially with someone more senior than them or someone they’ve always aspired to emulate. Global Gaming Women helps break down those barriers for women and brings together women at all job levels to network and meet one another all year-round. They offer networking events and educational opportunities that help women create a close inner circle of peers and advisors that can help them advance in their careers. Networking is such a huge part of the business and GGW brings together women from all segments of the gaming industry worldwide and give them opportunities to build new relationships and find new opportunities that they simply wouldn’t have otherwise.

How wide-reaching is GGW?

Global Gaming Women has a global reach and we are growing every day. The challenges women face in the gaming industry are not unique to one geographic region, so we formed GGW to be an inclusive resource for women from all strata and all geographies to learn from each other and grow with each other.

What resources do you provide to empower members?

There are many resources for our members that fall into four general categories: education, training, mentoring and events. However, they have one common goal – to connect women of different experience levels and different backgrounds to create a comfortable mentoring-and-learning atmosphere. There are strong, incredibly insightful women in our industry, and at GGW, we provide a variety of forums and tools to facilitate and stimulate conversations and learning.

What is GGW’s greatest accomplishment?

That is a challenging question with many answers. Some might say the fact that GGW was formed in and of itself is a major accomplishment, and there were strong, visionary women leaders who made it happen. Perhaps recently, however, a major accomplishment was how we were able to pivot during the pandemic. We quickly modified everything we do to help women stay connected and face the new challenges of the new world that erupted around us all. For example, we took our speaker series online and had a tremendous response at each event, culminating in our Lean-In Breakfast in January where we had more than 400 attendees from multiple time zones. We kept our lean-in circles going over the past 18 months and, as many women fell out of the industry, we allowed those women to remain connected in the organization. Although some have left the industry altogether, they still want to be involved with GGW, which is a great testament to GGW and our programs.

What has GGW been able to do for your personal career?

Opportunities and access to people! I first got involved with GGW in 2015 because my employer at the time wanted to get more involved in the gaming industry and decided partnering with GGW was a good way to show our commitment to the industry. I started building a relationship with GGW and worked with them on a fundraiser called “The Power of the Suite” which featured a fashion show showcasing professional workwear paired with a panel of corporate-level speakers talking about positive mental health for women in the workplace. It was during this event planning I was exposed and introduced to many powerful female senior leaders in the industry and made me personally and professionally feel like a million bucks. I specifically remember meeting Scientific Games Executive Vice President Eileen Moore-Johnson during this event and looking up to her like an idol and then years later being at a Chairman’s Reception during Global Gaming Expo with her and talking like we were old friends. At that moment I remember feeling “I’ve made it.” I was so happy. At that event Eileen introduced me to Hospital Gaming Consulting President Holly Gagnon, whom

I become friends with and she’s been advising me throughout my career. It’s these types of introductions that are the power of Global Gaming Women.

How is the success of GGW measured?

In the success of each individual person. If we can help one person, or a group, or an industry, then we have been successful.

Has the pandemic crimped GGW’s style, its ability to deliver its product?

What we never could have predicted 18 months ago is the pandemic actually made us stronger as a group and as individuals. Our programs have grown, our impact has grown, and we are truly thankful to our many sponsors who, even during their own times of crisis, saw the importance of what we were doing and stepped up to help.

How far are we from seeing another major female CEO in gaming?

That’s a question for the industry’s companies; however, from GGW’s perspective, that question highlights the purpose of the mentor/mentee relationship. There are strong, insightful women leaders at every level, in every company, and in every country, and the more we can learn from each other, the more we can mentor each other and share our growth, the better the industry will continue to be, and the less distance there will be between now and “how far.” It would be remiss not to say how supportive men throughout the industry have been and continue to me. We have a great number of male sponsors, and they understand the importance of what we do. They have team members, they have wives, they have daughters, and they get the big picture of what we are doing and why it matters.

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Unquenched Optimism

American Gaming Association President and CEO, Bill Miller sees better times ahead for gaming. By David McKee

020 was the worst of years for the

2gaming industry and yet showed it at its finest. To cite but one example, Las Vegas Sands CEO Sheldon Adelson not only deployed some of the most stringent and earliest anti-Covid protocols in the business, he also kept his entire workforce on salary throughout the pandemic.

One thinks of Adelson as his sudden death prefaced American Gaming Association President Bill Miller’s State of the Industry speech by only a few days. And if the ghost of Adelson seemed to be hovering over the conference call, it was because the previous afternoon, new Sands CEO Rob Goldstein said the company would be “exploring” online sports betting and Internet gambling—a 180-degree reversal from Adelson’s entrenched opposition.

Breaking with previous AGA neutrality on these issues, Miller called OSB and i-gaming “essential” to the industry’s future, especially as they had been mainstays of revenue and sources of continuity during the Great Shutdown. “But optimism is no excuse for complacency,” he added, before outlining his agenda for the new(ish) year. To get more of a sense of what Miller hopes—and fears—we caught up with him just after the Super Bowl.

What have we learned from the pandemic about gaming’s resilience?

The last year has been…‘trying’ is an understatement. To have an industry that was literally, completely shut down with the exception of online. The industry has shown resilience that it has over many decades that have usually been more localized, if you think of the industry’s resilience after Hurricane Katrina or Superstorm Sandy or 2008-9’s financial crisis. There was a resilience that had to be evident in those crises but never anything like this. What we’ve weathered over the last 11 months has really showed the toughness of the industry, the ability of the industry to show compassion for the people that work for us. It’s created an opportunity for us to drive innovation because it was required, whether that be in payment modernization or redesign of casino floors. What was unquestionably the most difficult year in the history of the American gaming industry was one that brought us together, made us stronger, and set the table for what will be an exceptional short- and long-term future.

You’re very optimistic about the prospects for this year. What are the reasons behind this?

First and foremost, the American public was understandably terrified of the virus and the pandemic, and it created a situation where government leaders, health experts mandated a shutdown, in essence, of the global economy. And while that was and continues