Steven Grech

• Delivering Product Focus: Product Vision, Strategies, Processes, Team structures and Product Roadmap creation for start ups & high growth companies (CPO) for igaming clients
• Product Design, UX Research, Product Development, Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) & Personalisation. 
• Start-up consulting including company set up, branding, product design, development and go-to market strategy for clients in igaming & ecommerce (Gonami.com)
• iGaming: online casino strategy, management and commercial growth for regulated and MGA markets (managing upwards of 11 figure TO)

Part of top management and reporting to the Founder/CEO, I joined Kaizen Gaming when it had 750 employees and (re)created the Product Organisation from the ground up, running multiple product teams including Product Design, Customer Experience, Sportsbook Product, Casino Product, Payments and My Account Products, introducing new agile processes and conversion optimisation services, and leading the Gaming team from January 2021 onwards. Kaizen Gaming now has over 1600 employees and won EGR's Operator of the Year Award (2022). 

July 2021 onwards:
- After a reorg, I focused on driving growth in the Gaming Business Unit (RNG, Live Casino, Virtuals & Lotto) building the team up from 30 to 70+ people including Product Operations (RNG / Live Casino), Product Design, Product Management and Product Development (front end & integrations). 
- Doubled Casino Turnover from 2020 to 2021 (10-figures) and tripled (11-figures) from 2021 to 2022. x7 Turnover multiplier in two years. 
- Launched a new casino product experience in November 2021, a new live casino studio and dedicated tables, launching new RNG vendors and exclusive & branded games and developed and launched the new Casino Platform with the Platform team in Q4 2022 with Casino now on par with Sportsbook across all KPIs.
- Took over the leadership of the Rewards & Comms Product Vertical in October 2022, delivering CRM products for the Group. Total headcount including Gaming of 120+ people. 

From May 2020 to June 2021:
- Defined the Group's product vision, product pillars & product roadmaps for all product verticals
- Designed and implemented a new Triple Track Agile (TTA) process introducing new Product Discovery & Product Optimisation tracks.
- Instilled a design-centric mindset and grew the product design team from 5 designers to over 20 designers in two years consisting of Product Designers & UX Researchers.
- Continual delivery of product roadmaps across all product verticals (sportsbook, casino, my account & payments) in all Betano & Stoiximan markets.

Started YakoCasino.com from the ground-up in 2015 as the company's CEO / CPO, designing the brand, casino product and company vision, launching in August 2015 with ~3K First Time Depositors per month. YakoCasino.com immediately drew 6-figure Net Gaming Revenues per month. Migrated the business from the EveryMatrix platform to L&L Europe’s platform in July 2017 moving out of day-to-day management of the company in August 2017 staying on as co-founder and exiting in December 2020.

Discovered the name “Yako”, which is Swahili for “Your” and created the Online Gambling Industry's first Netflix Casino in August 2015 with personalisation including “Top picks for you”, “Trending now” and “because you played ...". More on this in this article in my blog.

Consultant & business adviser to start-ups and high growth corporates including Kaizen Gaming, Mr Green, Aspire Global, Greentube, Enteractive to name a few.

Head hunted by Betsson Group's NordicBet brand to lead the redesign and development of the NordicBet product to their central platform. Also spearheaded the brand's UX and product strategy whilst launching new Customer Experience driven services such as Conversion Rate Optimisation and personalisation.

• Defined and launched a new blog for NordicBet in Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark driving organic traffic growth for NordicBet
• Led and defined an 1-2-1 personalisation campaign for NordicBet's Casino in October '14 driving double digit growth across multiple KPIs (rounds played, turnover, deposits and active playing days)
• Spearheaded the User Experience Design strategy, design & development and user testing for the new NordicBet.com for mobile, tablet and desktop. Launched in November 2014.
• Improved New Registered Customers (NRC) to New Depositing Customers (NDC) conversion rate by 150% across all traffic sources
• Built new Digital team from 2 people to 8 people in the first two months consisting of User Experience Designers, Product Owners, Graphic Designers and content editors
• Led the UX Strategy for NordicBet's Sportsbook 

Brought in to Maxymiser in November 2013 to head up the Media & Services team (UK & Ukraine); responsible for 7-figure sector revenue and a team of 24 consultants, analysts and developers.

• Lead and managed Customer Experience (CX) optimisation strategies for the Financial Times, BBC, Channel4, CompareTheMarket, e.on, EDF, Future Publishing, Interflora, ITV, The Economist, Telegraph, Trinity Mirror, Virgin Media, and Which? magazine.
• Grew sector revenues for Media and Services by over 20% and acted as senior consultant to all clients driving their digital strategy and CRO road maps.

Transformed Lightmaker into a full service digital agency by launching new digital consulting services - business analysis, market research, user research, user experience design and UX testing, data consulting, social media and SEO - with the new services accounting for 25% of Lightmaker UK's turnovers. Digital Product Strategy Consultant for Lightmaker’s global and start-up clients including Credit Suisse, flydubai, Nokia, Eurotunnel Le Shuttle, D-Link, Fulham FC, NHSBT, Manchester United, Universal Music, Gopak Ltd, and The R&A.