2007 Lottery Industry Hall of Fame Members
Constantinos Antonopoulos
Former Chief Executive Officer, INTRALOT SA
Country: GREECE |
Constantinos (Costas) Antonopoulos has been instrumental in raising significant amounts of revenues for good causes around the world while making INTRALOT the second largest Lottery vendor in the world. Under Costas' guidance INTRALOT has achieved the highest growth rate in the industry. His hard work, his vision and dedication to the customers and the communities that they serve has led to the establishment of a global presence in over 40 countries with over 3,600 employees. His philosophy has always been to provide the best technology through significant research and development, to provide the highest levels of customer service through strong partnerships with his customers, to provide the best working conditions through cooperation and training and to provide a beneficial presence in all of the communities that he serves through support, social responsibility and good corporate citizenship.
INTRALOT is fourth among the largest companies listed on the Athens Stock Exchange (excluding banks and State owned companies). INTRALOT’s strong international outlook is proven by its financial position. Its gross revenue from international activities has increased approximately 30 times since 2002. The estimate for gross earnings in 2007 is $ 1.25 billion and its current market capitalization is in excess of $ 2.5 billion as a direct result of Costas’ management abilities. Costas began his successful career in the gaming industry with the establishment of the first online Lottery in Russia in the early '90s. When INTRALOT was founded in 1992 it had 10 employees. Costas was one of the company’s co-founders and assumed the position of General Manager. He established a client-oriented philosophy and created autonomous business units by creating strong teams and minimizing hierarchies. In addition to his responsibilities at INTRALOT, Costas is active in numerous Greek and international business activities. Those who watch INTRALOT’s course acknowledge that its history has been written by Costas' hand and has been marked by projects of international prestige, innovative character and acclaimed reliability. Under Costas’ direction the instant ticket operation in Greece became the 4th most profitable international instant lottery per capita. South America was the next field for expansion. INTRALOT won the 1999 bid to supply technology and equipment to operate the Chilean State Lottery. The company further expanded throughout South America, winning projects in Argentina, Peru and Colombia and expanding into Argentina. INTRALOT is also the uncontested leader of the Central and Eastern European markets, the huge Asian market and has a strong presence in Oceania. INTRALOT has won over 50% of the bids that it has participated in during the last 4 years and 6 out of 6 of the recent largest awards internationally: Taiwan, South Africa, South Korea, Russia, Italy and Greece. In 2002, Costas entered the North American market and, through his insight, direction and strategic planning became the first non-US company in the online gaming sector to enter the prestigious North American market. In less than 4 years, INTRALOT has been awarded 4 U.S. lottery contracts: Nebraska, Idaho, Montana and recently New Mexico. Costas is a pioneer in the gaming sector. For example, in 2001 he was the first to foresee the convergence of the entertainment and gaming sectors, calling this match 'Entergaming'. To support his prediction and prepare for the future industry direction, INTRALOT has invested considerable resources in R&D so that its products and services are in place as the industry develops and the needs of its customers grow. Another significant example of Costas' revolutionary thinking was the creation of new alternative channels for gaming. INTRALOT, under Costas’ direction, created the innovative Β-ΟΝ platform, which won the 'Product of the Year 2006' award from the Public Gaming Research Institute. PGRI also honored INTRALOT with the 'SMART-IDEA 2007' award for its microLOT terminal at the PGRI’s SMART-TECH Conference 2007 in Las Vegas. The award was for 'Unique contributions to the Lottery Industry' INTRALOT's technological prominence was also recently recognized when its General Technical Division was awarded the 'Committed to Excellence in Europe' distinction. One of Costas' most important achievements is his contribution to the development of Sports Betting on an international level. He led Sports Betting to become one of the most successful gaming products offered through nationwide online retail networks. INTRALOT is now the largest sports betting bookmaker in the world. In only 6 years INTRALOT’s Sports Betting annual sales in 6 countries have grown to $6.3 billion. Costas encourages the promotion of Corporate Social Responsibility throughout all of the INTRALOT Group. INTRALOT recently received a Recognition Award for supporting the Fulbright Foundation's Scholarship Program. This program offers educational and cultural exchange opportunities to Greek and American students, scholars, researchers, and artists. A few of the many examples of INTRALOT’s dedication to social responsibility are:
Costas has received many honors for his continuing efforts towards excellence and international leadership. His many awards include the 'Businessman of the Year 2004', the 'Best Manager for Innovation 2005', 'Best Global Oriented Manager 2005' and 'Best Manager FTSE/ASE 20' for 2006. Costas has a degree in Electrical Engineering and a Master of Science degree in Systems Reliability. |
Reidar Nordby, Jr.
Former Chief Executive Officer Norsk Tipping, the Norwegian National Lottery
Country: NORWAY |
Reidar Nordby, Jr. has been the President and CEO of Norsk Tipping, the Norwegian National Lottery, since 1989. Since 2000 he has also been President of the World Lottery Association (WLA) until 2006. Mr. Nordby has been engaged in bringing the international lottery community stronger through strengthened relations between the five Regional Lottery Associations.
Mr. Nordby has also initiated the WLA Security and Risk Management Standards and the newly developed RFP standards. He is also a member of the WLA Strategic Development Committee, the Board of Directors of Viking Lotto, and the European Football Pool. In recognition of his international orientation, he has been appointed Member of the Strategic Advisory Board, China Center for Lottery Studies at Peking University. Under the leadership of Mr. Nordby, the Norwegian National Lottery has been among the top ten most admired companies in Norway for 12 consecutive years. He has been the author of several academic publications, including: Jacobsen, K, Hofman-Bang P, and Nordby Jr, R.. “The IC Rating model by Intellectual Capital Sweden” Journal of Intellectual Capital, Vol 6 no 4, 2005,, Jacobsen K, Hofman-Bang, P, and Nordby Jr. R., “Ledelse, måling og rapportering av intellektuell capital, Magma, Tidsskrift for økonomi og ledelse, Vol 8, no 5, 2005 … He is Consul for the Kingdom of Sweden and has been awarded the Swedish Royal Order of the Northern Star. Curriculum Vitae Professional life:
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Jan Stewart
Former Chief Executive Officer of LotteryWest
Country: AUSTRALIA |
My career in the lottery industry began in July 1987 when I was offered a position as a consultant to the Board of the Lotteries Commission of Western Australia (LCWA—now Lotterywest) as a grant consultant. The LCWA was established in 1933, and was not only given the responsibility to run a lottery, it was also given the responsibility directly to distribute a proportion of the revenues raised in the form of grants to charity and community groups in Western Australia.
My background is social work (graduated with a Masters of Social Work in 1992). Two years previously I had resigned from the position of Chief Social Worker at Western Australia’s paediatric teaching hospital to raise our first child. It was this background in community service that led the Board to invite me to assist them in their grant making decisions. Gradually, the job developed to the point in 1990 where I became the first 'Director of Community Funding' having by then set up a proper funding program structure, public grant guidelines, a simple application process, and proper grant records and grant process. The team I led began to develop a range of innovative grant programs, and today have a national reputation in the community service and philanthropic sector for innovative grant making. 95% of our grant applicants succeed in their requests (because we work with them to help them succeed), and our customers recently reported on all rankings a more than 95% positive score for their experience in dealing with Lotterywest. In 1992, after an extensive executive search and selection process, I was formally appointed to the position of Chief Executive Officer, a position I have held since that time. The sales turnover of Lotterywest in 1992 was $A302.9 million. In the financial year 2006/2007 it was $A599 million. The sales increase in 2006/2007 against the previous year was 9.6%, including a 15% increase in instant lottery sales. Return to beneficiaries was $A185 million, including the direct grants program of $A75 million National and International Contribution to the Lottery Industry I am a member of the Australian lottery industry group the 'Australian Lotto Bloc', and have chaired the Powerball Bloc since 1996. In 1995, Lotterywest hosted an international lottery conference on behalf of the then 'Intertoto'. I was responsible for the total planning and leadership of the conference and trade show, which saw 1000 delegates come to Perth. Since then I have attended either AILE or Intertoto conferences every year until the merger that led to the formation of the World Lottery Association in 1999. At virtually every lottery and WLA conference since 1995 I have been invited to make a presentation or to moderate a business session (or both). In Oslo 1999, I was elected as the inaugural President of the newly formed Asia Pacific Lottery Association (APLA), a position I held for 5 years. As President of APLA, I initiated, organized, and hosted two regional seminars in Perth (1999 and 2002), and the inaugural APLA Lottery Association conference in September 2004 attended by 130 delegates from 38 organizations and 16 countries. In addition during that time, hosted a number of visits by representatives of the lotteries of North/East Asia [Thailand, China, Japan, Korea, Singapore], who came to us on study tours. As the APLA delegate I joined the Executive Committee of WLA in 2000, a position in which I served until November 2005. At the WLA Congress in Durban in November 2005 I was elected by the WLA membership to one of the 7 elected positions on the Executive Committee. I subsequently was appointed Vice President, and most recently at the Singapore conference in 2006 I was re-elected to the Executive Committee and appointed to the position of Senior Vice President. In my WLA capacity, I have been a member of the Security and Strategic Development Committees since 2000. Most recently in 2006 I have taken on the leadership of the WLA Communications Committee, (which responsibility includes working with the WLA staff to develop a strategic communication plan, to redevelop the website and the magazine), and in May 2007 the task of leading a group to work on the development of WLA marketing standards for our membership. In 2006, I took on the responsibility of the co-ordination of the recruitment, selection, and appointment of the new Executive Director of WLA, following the retirement of the Secretary-General. I also co-ordinated all the farewell tributes to her at her retirement function. Summary Lotterywest is one of the smaller lotteries (and certainly Perth is the most isolated capital in the world – albeit with arguably the largest geographical territory of the lottery world). Despite that, Lotterywest has acquired an international reputation for excellence in the way we have positioned our values driven Lotterywest brand (we developed this new brand in 2004), the way we manage our partnership with our retailers, and especially for our relationship with our beneficiaries, and our whole community. Lotterywest has a team of dedicated and creative staff of whom I am very proud. Through our combined efforts, it has been gratifying to see Lotterywest recognized as a leader among lotteries of the world. We regularly receive requests for information from our international colleagues on the way we do things in Western Australia, and have often hosted international visitors who wish to learn from us. In the past 15 years I have developed a wide network of colleagues across the international lottery industry, many of whom I am proud to call friend as well as colleague. Since my almost 'accidental' and unplanned entry to the lottery business back in 1987, I have found this business an endless source of interest and personal satisfaction. I am committed to excellence in the operations of Lotterywest, in the World Lottery Association, and to making whatever contribution I can to enhance the standing of the lottery business throughout the world. |