Bragg Gaming restructures board of directors
14 Mar 2019
"We're happy that Jim, Paul and Akshay have agreed to join the board," said Dominic Mansour, CEO of Bragg. "We're very focused on our objective of developing into a global gaming force, and we need a board with the skills to support that growth. Jim and Akshay both bring extensive gaming industry experience to the team, and Paul's expertise in M&A will be instrumental to our growth plan.
Jim Ryan is an experienced online gaming executive, and CEO of Pala Interactive LLC. He has also held leadership roles at a number of other established online gaming companies, such as bwin.party digital entertainment (Co-CEO), PartyGaming, St. Minver and Excapsa Software (CEO), and Cryptologic Software (CFO). Mr. Ryan also currently holds board roles at JPJ Group PLC (LSE), Gaming Realms PLC, Pala Interactive LLC and Fralis LLC, and has served on the boards of several other public and private companies.
"I'm pleased to join Bragg in this exciting growth phase," said Mr. Ryan. "With an experienced gaming industry leader like Dominic at the helm of a new management team, and the unlimited potential of their three main properties; Oryx Gaming, GiveMeSport and GiveMeBet, I'm confident that Bragg will continue its upward trajectory."
Paul Pathak is an established securities and investment industry lawyer, and partner at Chitiz Pathak LLP, practising primarily in the areas of corporate, securities, mergers, acquisitions and commercial law. Mr. Pathak acts for issuers in a broad range of securities transactions, including Initial Public Offerings (IPOs), reverse takeovers (RTOs), establishment of capital pool companies, going-private transactions and other financing structures. Mr. Pathak currently serves as a director of JPJ Group PLC (LSE), the Intertain Group Limited (TSX) and Wayland Group Corp. (CSE), and has served on the boards on several other public and private companies.
"Bragg's current momentum is particularly exciting," noted Mr. Pathak. "They've implemented a major shift in strategic direction over the past months and are already seeing positive year-over-year growth on a number of key measures, including yield, global organic traffic and paid traffic. The Oryx acquisition has been very successful, with multiple new clients signing and going live since the announcement."
Akshay Kumar was appointed CFO of Bragg Gaming in December 2018, and previously held financial leadership roles at other gaming operations. In his capacity as CFO of NetPlay TV PLC, Mr. Kumar was instrumental in the initial corporate restructuring of the operations and all corporate acquisitions, culminating in steering the 2017 sale of the LSE-listed gaming business to Betsson AB. Prior to this, Mr. Kumar also acted as Financial Controller at sports spread betting specialist Sporting Index.
These appointments constitute a major restructure of Bragg's board, following the recent resignations of board members Marvin Igelman and Mike Galloro and the previously announced departures of Nick Thain and Jae Chalfin. Bragg would like to thank Mr. Galloro and Mr. Igelman for their services and for enabling a smooth transition of the board, as a result of their planned resignations.