In Summary

The GVC Group has a workforce of over 25,000 people and with a network of 3,500 bookmaking shops operating under the separate Ladbrokes and Coral brands, it is the UK’s largest high street bookmaker.

The Situation

Following the completion of GVC's acquisition of Ladbrokes Coral Group PLC, which transformed the scale and shape of the business to create one of the world’s largest sports betting and gaming Groups, GVC was looking for a highly experienced and talented Global PMO to lead and deliver on a set of synergy targets, which would result in significant savings and benefits to the business on an annual basis.

The Solution

GVC turned to BIE to find the right candidate. The remit was to find an experienced interim with the skillset and experience needed to coordinate and oversee the delivery of key initiatives across 10 global workstreams, encompassing Finance, HR business partners and IT leads. It required someone who could implement project charters and implement strong team governance to support the initiative tracking across all workstreams in line with executive expectations and targets.

The successful candidate was Hayley Fenton, an IT project management professional with 17 years of combined experience orchestrating full project lifecycles from planning to delivery across various challenging business environments.

The Outcome

The synergy target was set at £130m on an annual basis.To achieve the target, 10 large-scale workstreams were put in place, with each having its own finance, HR & project management leads.

A high percentage of the overall synergy targets were reliant on effective tech integration and platform migration, and further savings were made through HR restructuring and system reviews.

Hayley facilitated and tracked fortnightly steering committee meetings to ensure strong governance and subsequent visibility was in place throughout the life-cycle of the integration. The governance was further underpinned by clear status reporting and initiative tracking mechanisms which were used by the full programme team on a regular basis, this further provided assurance to senior stakeholders.

Subsequently, the Global PMO Lead interim role was made a permanent resource in Vienna, a testament to Hayley’s success in the position.

Candidate's View

On the placement:

“It was well-planned from the beginning. The leadership team had a clear view of their goals and targets, they got everyone to buy into it and subsequently they made a success of the integration. Given the quality of leadership within GVC – I’m confident they will succeed at whatever they do.  It was a pleasure to work with such a great team."

On BIE:

"James Wilson was excellent – the feedback and regular touch points were well received. The great thing with BIE is they meet candidates, have a thorough discussion and take time to understand you, this way they can fit you with the right clients. There are only a couple of recruitment agencies that stand out for me in this ever-changing industry now – and BIE is one of them."

Hayley Fenton

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