Kristian Welch
Betting & Gaming Group CMO / Crypto Betting & Gaming specialist / GambleFi Strategy Consultant & Board Advisor. Growth, Innovation and Emerging Trends Focused
Gibraltar
Overview
Work Experience
Group CMO & Board Advisor Betting and Gaming
2022 - Current
Consulting with regulated and off-shore regulated casino's, sportsbooks and crypto betting & gaming entities. focused on growth, attribution, M&A, re-structuring, strategy, budgeting, content, sponsorship, omni-channel and crypto readiness , acceptance and acquisition. Clients: US Sportsbook and Casino (Physical and online) /US Horse Racing/ Off-shore regulated Market Global Casino and Sportsbook group /Large Crypto first Casino Land Based & Online US Casino.
Group CMO & Exec Member
2020 - 2022
CMO, Senior advisor and Exec member of a grey market gaming and betting business, focused on US, CN, EU, AUS and emerging territories. Working heavily on crypto first betting and gaming, US sportsbook, US casino growth and M&A. Over 20 brands, 300 people and 250M USD budget. Core brands Bodog, Bovada, Ignition, CafeCasino, Thunderpick, Mbit & Joe Fortune
US CMO
2018 - 2020
Project working on US Market entry for the Stars Group (Owners of SkyBet) My role was to act as lead marketing advisor and initial CMO for the US business using my experience of the US market, performance marketing and developing relationships with potential partners to create the go to market plan. This role had dual reporting to the Chief Corp Dev Officer and US CEO, our focus was on finding the right partner to emulate the success of SkyBet but in the US with a US centric approach. This culminated in a deal with Fox Sports to create FoxBet and subsequently the business merged with Flutter (Paddy Power / Betfair) to create the worlds largest gambling business with a combined USD value of over 10 billion. My focus was on creating the marketing plan, budget, org structure, suppliers and go to market strategy with a focus on performance marketing and trackable / attributable channels to create a trading led, performance first growth team.
CMO
2017 - 2018
Lead marketeer within William Hill group reporting to the CEO and part of the senior management team, budget size 200 million GBP plus, team size 200 plus. My role was to re-focus the marketing department to become an acquisition focused, digital first, numbers driven, trading led marketing unit. This involved creating the strategy, day to day trading performance, digital transformation, delivering, selecting & implementing a new marketing stack, creating a UK based purpose-built performance marketing centre of excellence. As part of the transformation we implemented an attribution model, reduced marketing spend by 40 million per annum, increased performance buy over 10%, drastically improved conversion via our online platforms whilst reducing the average CPA by over 20%. I also worked with a small project team selected by the Group CEO to plan, execute and deliver US market entry for William Hill from a marketing and growth perspective, this was mainly forced on new legalised states on the east coast of the US. We had to create a strategy, build a team, create the media, marketing and brand plans, select potential partners and utilise our UK relationships in the US. We worked closely with key partners such as Google, Facebook, Snap, YouTube, Bing and Amazon to support our Marketing entry and create some competitive advantage.
CMO - Interim
2015 - 2016
Leading a team of 40 plus talented professionals, I led up the Gocompare.com marketing team with full P&L responsibility covering Brand, Broadcast, Digital, Acquisition, CRM, PR, Insight, Internal Comms, SEO, Retention, & Planning
Group Digital Director
2013 - 2015
Carlyle backed Motoring services business. Successful exit with sale to the Singaporean sovereign wealth fund (GIC) for 2 Billion GBP.
Global Growth Director - Interim
2012 - 2013
Sequoia and SEP backed business. As director of global country marketing, I was responsible for go to market strategy & P&L for Skyscanner across 40+ markets.
Director Websites & Conversion EMEA - Interim
2011 - 2012
Interim management contract - The Digital Sales & Marketing division of Avis Budget EMEA is accountable for all traffic to the sites (web, mobile web and apps), the conversion of these visitors into sales, and the digital retention and loyalty of these customers to generate repeat sales, across both the Avis and Budget brands.
Chief Marketing Officer
2008 - 2011
Worked under the transition from Aviva to Arques PE, Management buy out under Dasq Capital Partners and eventual sales to Acromas. Promoted from Head of Digital & Retail Marketing after 1 year.
Corporate Development
2002 - 2007
Marketing, acquisition, digital subscription, online and revenue optimisation