William Hill completes Online restructure with Betfair and Gala Coral hires

William Hill has completed the restructure of its Online team with a trio of senior appointments, including a new director of gaming P&L and chief information officer (CIO), EGR Intel has learned.

The operator has hired Betfair’s former director of gaming ops, Liam Wallwork, to assume the duties currently held by head of gaming P&L James Curwen and will have full operational control of the entire gaming product.

Curwen has instead been handed responsibility for driving product development and innovation within the gaming team in a new role as chief gaming product officer.

Both Wallwork and Curwen will report into Grant Williams who was appointed William Hill Online COO late last year after previously working on a contract basis.

Meanwhile, Itay Fisher has joined the operator as its new Online CIO, and will oversee all technical development and strategy to deliver “best-in-class” products and customer experience.

Fisher was previously director of product and gaming development at Gala Coral, in addition to holding senior roles at Playtech, and will report into Group CIO Kevin O’Connor.

However, Fisher will also sit on William Hill Online MD Crispin Nieboer’s leadership team and provide a link between Online and the technology function.

Kristian Welch, former marketing director at Gocompare.com, completes the trio of appointments as William Hill’s new digital marketing director, reporting into Group chief customer officer Cem Miralay.

Wallwork and Welch will join the company on 16 January and Fisher on 20 February, with the trio to be based at Hills’ Gibraltar office.

“I am delighted with the quality of these new appointments,” Nieboer, said. “They bring with them the necessary skills and abilities to help us achieve our aim of delivering a best-in-class product and experience to our customers.

“Liam, Kristian and Itay bring a range of new experience for both inside and outside the online gaming industry, and their combined expertise and new skill sets will enhance our capabilities across the key areas of gaming, marketing and technology.”

News of the hires come after William Hill this week revealed full-year group profits would come in approximately £20m below previous guidance following a run of “customer-friendly” results in December.

The appointments complete a major restructure of the operator’s Online team which has been ongoing since Nieboer was appointed permanent Online MD last year.

As part of the changes, Nieboer put in place a new P&L structure to replace the company’s previous set-up of three separate innovation, product development and operations divisions.

Appointments since implementing the strategy have included Stuart Weston as sportsbook P&L director, Alex Leese as international director and Juergen Reutter as chief experience officer.

In September, William Hill also hired The Rank Group’s Ciara Nic Liam as its new head of gaming.

The firm remains on the hunt for a new CEO following the sacking of James Henderson in July.