Five questions with: Connie Laverty O’Connor

Connie Laverty O'Connor, GTECH's Senior Vice President & Chief Customer Officer / COURTESY GTECH
Connie Laverty O'Connor, GTECH's Senior Vice President & Chief Customer Officer / COURTESY GTECH

Connie Laverty O’Connor, senior vice president & chief customer officer at GTECH S.p.A., talked with Providence Business News recently after she received the Rebecca Hargrove Award.

PBN: You were honored with the Rebecca Hargrove Award for Mentorship for helping to develop the next generation of lottery industry leaders. What does receiving this award mean to you?
O’CONNOR:
It’s a ‘pay it forward’ philosophy, if you think about it. Given all of the people who have mentored me over the years, and who recognized and fostered in me capabilities even I didn’t know I had, it’s important for me to then share the years of insights and hard lessons learned in order to mold and inspire future leadership. Recognition for mentorship helps current leaders appreciate the necessity for mentorship as a way to bring along young people and give them the affirmation and the confidence to go beyond their comfort zone and tap into their true potential.

PBN: In announcing the award, you were cited for inspiring and mentoring a “legion” of followers. What inspires you to reach out to so many people?
O’CONNOR:
Each and every one of us is brought on Earth for a purpose. As a young and not very pretty child growing up in Ireland with very little material means, my father and mother continually reinforced the importance of being all that I could be. Never blame anybody else – when you point a finger at somebody else, there are four pointed back at yourself.

My very first boss in the lottery business was an ex-Army colonel who mentored me to within an inch of my life, teaching me Chinese, speed reading, memory games, Apple computer programming and operationalizing statistical business reports. He was determined, despite my less-than-enthusiastic acquiescence, to make something of me. He taught me to take concise notes that would allow me to focus on – and remember – key business facts, giving me confidence from having a command of the facts, thereby granting me credibility, which reinforced my self-assurance.

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Fast forward now to the present … I have always felt a deep obligation to share life’s lessons with everyone around me, male and female, young and old, to help ease the path and get things done. Many times, people want help – they’re just not sure how to ask for it. By reading the room, and sensing the gaps, there is tremendous opportunity to move business forward while, at the same time, bringing the best out of everybody. Exciting others, teaching others, is a true measure of fulfillment – the depth and breadth of personal infrastructure supporting me in my life is humbling, and I never cease to count my blessings. So whatever I give, it’s returned many times over. I’m surrounded by people that genuinely care.

PBN: How important is it to help develop the next generation of talent in your business? Do you think it’s important no matter what the industry is? Why?

O’CONNOR: Succession planning is a critical business priority, not just for the lottery business, but for any business. The marketplace is constantly shifting, innovation is the lifeblood of progress, and exponential evolution of technology is creating a whole different business paradigm. Embracing young people and listening to their ideas is not just a good thing to do – it’s crucial to maintaining a competitive edge, regardless of the industry. In our case, lotteries all over the world would count on attracting new and younger players and continuing to make their lottery brands relevant to these players, their number one business imperative, in order to generate sustainable revenues.

PBN: Most of your career has been spent working at state lottery commissions. What is different about working for lottery equipment and service provider GTECH?
O’CONNOR:
The distinction between working for state lotteries and GTECH is just one of scale. Working for the New York Lottery and the Georgia Lottery, we had very specific revenue mandates and a tremendous amount of pressure to continue to exceed those numbers. GTECH is a Customer First lottery and gaming company, and while the focus is now global, the fundamentals of what success looks like has not changed. It’s still a matter of having a clear vision, tremendous intellectual curiosity, laser focus on implementing business priorities and following through to get it done, at every level. Today, the follow through is more challenging than ever before, given the complexity and nuances of an industry that operates at the crossroads of government, politics and morality, all converging at over 440,000 retail locations around the world. Multi-jurisdiction games like Powerball, Mega Millions, and hopefully the newly-launched national premium game, as well as games like EuroMillions, have become key revenue contributors. Sustaining those revenues is an important priority.

PBN: As revenue derived from physical gambling facilities declines, what is GTECH doing to make sure that its business model reaches customers in ways that counteract that trend?
O’CONNOR:
In July, GTECH entered into a definitive merger agreement with IGT, a global leader in casino and social gaming entertainment, headquartered in Las Vegas, Nev. The merger combines the number one global lottery business with the number one global gaming equipment business into one company. The merger will create the world’s leading end-to-end gaming company, uniquely positioned to capitalize on opportunities across global gaming market segments.

GTECH’s leading position in lottery products, services and game content, as well as gaming operations, including the design, manufacturing, and operation of gaming machines, systems, and software, complements IGT’s expertise in the design, manufacturing, and operation of slot machines, system technology and online and social gaming.

The merger will bring together best-in-class content, equipment and interactive platforms under one company. Our customers will benefit from the combined companies’ greater global scale and geographic diversity and, most importantly, will continue to benefit from the passionate, Customer First responsiveness of our talented, experienced, dedicated and deeply committed people all over the world.

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