Penn Entertainment has announced a sweeping restructuring of its corporate leadership team, a strategic move designed to “reflect the company’s strategic priorities” and streamline its interactive and retail operations.
As part of this significant shake-up, effective immediately, the positions of Executive Vice President of Operations, held by Todd George, and Chief Information Officer, held by Rich Primus, have been eliminated, resulting in their departures from the company.
Strategic Realignment and Reporting Changes
The reorganization places a heavy emphasis on consolidating technology and operational oversight to improve efficiency. With the elimination of the EVP of Operations role, the reporting structure has been flattened. Senior Vice Presidents of regional operations, Rafael Verde, Aaron Rosenthal, and Justin Carter, will continue their oversight of the company’s retail footprint.
However, Verde and Rosenthal will now report directly to CEO and President Jay Snowden, while Carter will report to Verde.
Additionally, Chief Marketing Officer Jennifer Weissman will now report directly to Snowden. Her mandate has been expanded to focus on maximizing omnichannel results, which includes working closely with the technology team to enhance the Penn Play loyalty program. The goal is to refine the company’s overall value proposition and improve cross-sell execution between retail and digital platforms.
Unified Technology Leadership
Perhaps the most significant change is the consolidation of Penn’s technology operations. Aaron LaBerge, the company’s Chief Technology Officer and Head of Interactive, will now assume responsibility for Penn’s entire enterprise IT function. This move unifies Penn’s retail, digital, data, cloud, and security platforms under a single leadership structure.
The company explained the rationale in a statement: “This unified technology organisation will align Penn’s retail, digital, data, cloud and security platforms under a single leadership structure, reducing duplication, improving capital efficiency and accelerating the company’s ability to design, build and deploy scalable new products and omnichannel capabilities in support of Penn’s businesses.”
To support this new corporate shift, Penn Entertainment has commenced a search for a “digital chief operating officer.” This new executive will oversee the day-to-day operations of the Interactive segment, enabling LaBerge to focus on the broader technology integration.
