Glynn leaving as Ladbrokes hunts new chief
GAMBLING firm Ladbrokes announced yesterday it was on the hunt for a new chief executive, with current boss Richard Glynn set to relinquish the role next year.
The FTSE 250-listed company said that Glynn’s mandate at Ladbrokes, since his appointment as CEO in April 2010, had been to implement a re-engineering of its operational and digital capabilities. The board feels that recovery programme is now complete with “the benefits of that work are beginning to be seen” and, as such, Glynn will leave his role when his five-year term comes to an end next year.
Ladbrokes said it would now start to look for Glynn’s successor, assessing both internal and external candidates. Once the new boss is appointed, Glynn will remain in the role as long as is required to “ensure an orderly transition”, the company said.
Glynn has been a divisive figure in his tenure at Ladbrokes. He was given an ultimatum by shareholders earlier this year and warned he would get the boot if he should fail in his turnaround plan to get the digital business up to scratch before the World Cup.
Shareholders were also affronted that Glynn’s pay packet grew 85 per cent to £4.7m last year, despite a 66 per cent drop in company profits. Nonetheless, the World Cup resulted in a boost in Ladbrokes’ online performance, which lifted operating profits by 94 per cent in the third quarter to £33m.
PROFILE: RICHARD GLYNN
Richard Glynn was appointed chief executive of Ladbrokes on 22 April 2010. He came from being chairman of British spread betting firm Sporting Index, a role he held from November 2008 to April 2010. He had previously been chief executive of the company from 2001. Before joining Sporting Index, Glynn was group managing director of business-to-business communications company WCT, a subsidiary of Caribiner International, and CEO of Lord Saatchi’s media holding company Megalomedia. From 2000 until 2010, he served as a government appointed special trustee of Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity and from 2008 to 2010 was a trustee of the Child Health Research Appeal Trust of the UCL Institute of Child Health. Glynn began his career as a solicitor with City law firm SJ Berwin and specialised in management buyouts and sport as a partner at solicitors K&L Gates – formerly Nicholson, Graham and Jones.
An avid sports fan who particularly enjoys football and horse racing, Glynn graduated from Oxford in 1986, qualifying as a solicitor in 1989. He subsequently earned himself an MBA from the London Business School in 1991.