Elena Chambers: Stand for yourself and believe in yourself — Leadership lessons from Elena Chambers

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I got into so many different things so from regulatory to revenue generation to marketing to finance transformation it Asset Management I mean you name it I genuinely believe there is no a bad employee in most of the cases is just how we use that particular skill set or that particular person you can actually ruin someone's career because they can be good with one thing but not good for the other from my perspective just be yourself if you try to mimic your maale colleages Behavior that's not going to get you anywhere because you're know a man you're a woman so think about what what is your

advantage what is your differentiator what additional leadership skills do you have or different type of different qualities that man may not have there was a saying even and William Hill at some point or or being my boss will say you needen you need to go russing on them welcome to the igaming leader podcast where we uncover The Human Side of some of the most inspirational leaders in our industry I'm your host Leo Judkins and as an exi gaming director turned performance coach I've worked with over 200 leaders from companies like entain 365 floter and many more to help them build the habits to achieve sustainable

high performance in these episodes we share exactly what it takes for you to achieve the same so with that being said let's dive in Elena I am so excited to have you here on the podcast really uh really great I've been so looking forward to speaking to you because I did this podcast with Andrew Bullis and he said you have got to speak to ELA so welcome to the podcast really excited to to have you here oh well I'm very excited too so I've never done this before so I'm looking forward to see whether I can bring some value into I Gaming Community I bet

you will you've got such a rich history your journey started out as starting as a PA and then moving to Leading a billion pound transformation uh business is like incredible what I'd love to start with on that entire journey of yours what have been some of your your proudest moments I'm pretty proud of everything that I have achieved but also having said that to a large degree there's a lot of luck in there and I I don't want to underestimate it I think I've been very very lucky to meet really great people on the journey that I've always learned and I think this is one

of the things that I always look in the leadership and in my bosses is is there something I can learn from them so I have been very very very lucky to me meet people that kind of complemented my experience my leadership skills and so on and so forth so I've started as in finance I thought my career going to be as in into CFO didn't work out uh very well I didn't really like the numbers part and the lack of people engagement so I moved very quickly into transformation and change and projects and strategy Etc and through that I've been also quite lucky that I

was always rep supporting to people that were probably two three levels above me that meant that I have a lot to learn it also helped me to progress quite fast so bet was a big highlight I still feel like it's my alma mat and I've been there for 12 years and that was great I've traveled the world with them and WBA I think the biggest highlight was I met my husband there so so that's that's not necessarily career highlight but was an important step on my journey my professional journey and then I went to William Hill that I loved every minute I've spent there for

5 years was William Hill originally and then post merger with 888 I still stayed there for for a while and uh that was great experience great team lots of learning and lots of different things I've done there again working with great great great people not only from my boss but the team was amazing as well and then uh all win now so I'm excited love it I really love it I I'd like to start out with when you first moved into gaming and you gone to Hills you you took over really the last remaining work from from Mackenzie right and that must have been quite

challenging moving moving into there but but also within a year or just after a year you progressed into your first uh executive role and I'd love to hear a little bit more about what that first year looked like and what what that step up meant for you as well and how you actually got there because loads of people that will be listening will be looking for that next step so I'd love to hear your perspective on how that went it was very interesting so first of all maybe two seconds of why I ended up in ey gaming so it was not planned to start with

at all I was finishing my Executive MBA in New York so I've been a lot traveling to us and that was the year where basa happened so that was very interesting was actually going to happen with the industry and I got an opportunity to join William Hill they already had a lot of presence in the US working with Caesar and lots of plans so that was just for me an exciting industry to see what's actually going to happen because clearly that's probably will transform it to to a large degree I was not a gambler or a gamer in any shoer form I didn't know what

I'm going into it was just another regulated business at that point of time for me but also at the same time it wasn't a very new type of role when I joined WBA I also was a first inhouse sort of change transformation leader at the senior level so same happened in William Hills it was no sort of centralized capability to run transformation strategic projects change there was some things to pick up from McKenzie after a lot of work theyve done post profit warning but for me was also what's going to happen after and there's a lot of change and transformation that had to be driven

at the global level for me that was an introduction to an industry so I've spent a lot of time talking to people because I was the only one with a little team I got into so many different things so from regulatory to revenue generation to marketing to Finance transformation it Asset Management I mean you name it so things are completely different that were had to be driven at a central level and I worked quite closely with oric Benson he was a chief digital officer at that time and built quite quite close relationships with people across across the group so for me the skills that were

required for that role a year after to to to become a chief of staff for the CEO were a lot about transformation and driving change in a very structured way so was a very natural for me progression and I was very excited to be part of something new so I joined d as a head of executive office at the beginning and then also running change or continue running change but eventually into Chief of Staff so throughout my career and and in as I joined William Hill and progressing into that sea level uh role the main thing or the main learning is take opportunity when when

there is and you never know uh I never ask a question what it's going to give me because I don't think anyone can answer that question and also it's always in your hands on what do you take out of it and you in many in many ways you can shape the opportunity when you already there so just like Andrew used to say a lot big curious take the opportunity and see what comes out of it that's such an important part right just being curious he actually mentioned it in the podcast as well he said it's one of the biggest leadership characteristics for anybody at the

executive level I'd love to I mean with your as a cultural background and you moving around to to different countries being in different businesses how is that that how's that been for you what were some of the challenges perhaps that you've like as a leader managing different teams what are some of the challenges that you've run into there with managing International Teams and managing different cultures running into your own culture even right with how we are perceived and how we are like how did that show up through for you in your career I think this is one of the biggest leadership skills learnings is It's

ability to listen right and observe and sometimes this is all you need to do and then the answer on how to engage with that particular person or organization or culture kind of comes up on its own if you just listen and observe how people behave and what they need and how do they interact and so how they make decisions because biggest part of my role before in as a chief of staff but also now for example allwin is to make sure we drive forward and for that you need a team that is aligned that talk to each other that has the same goal same vision

same plan and so on and so for so for me spending quite a bit of time in Asia which is very very very different to Europe and then going to South America for a period of time working a lot with us so different cultures and so very different ways of interacting with people gives you an ability to be so versatile but also be uh ready to listen every time when you talk to people so regardless whether you may think that you already know the answer sometimes it's very important that you actually spend some time listening and even you may disagree at the end or whatever

that outcome can be I think listening is is very big big skill especially at the leadership level because we forget sometimes that if we're sea level we know the answers that's not necessarily the true and and I do believe that one of the biggest traits in SE level Executives in gaming or anywhere else is to build the team and Trust the team know better often so that's a big skill to to get I think yeah I love that I think a big part of that that listening to understand rather than listening to reply is such a it's such a powerful reframe as well and often

people forget that if you're listening just to reply because you feel that you know better and perhaps you do know better that doesn't engage the team at all right when you think about yourself it's when you feel heard that you actually engage and that you feel feel part of the team and I believe that's really really key there I genuinely believe there is no a bad employee I mean that have rare occasions but in in most of the cases is just how we use that particular skill set or that particular person and attitude and whatever in the right place and sometimes being able to listen

to your team can help you also to use your team in the best possible way so they can grow and they also deliver the impact that they can deliver we utilizing the uh the resources the talent the capability to their best capacity because it's very dangerous when you take someone who is really good and then you start pushing that person in everything different direction you can actually ruin someone's career because they may not be really good for they can be good with one thing but not good for the other and I think also ability to listen to your team can help you as a manager

as a leader to utilize your team in the best possible way really important for empathy love that really great advice so outside of Leadership Lessons I'd love to pull it back to you and talk a like every leader has their their challenges their moments that they that they've gone through things that have been difficult and things that really shaped them in their leadership career what have been some of those moments for you I think main challenge for me throughout a long period of time and probably not as much now but still there is being a young woman Russian is career-wise not always the best combination

to progress and I always tried to use it to my advantage eventually so it's at the beginning it was quite challenging and I got quite frustrated and upset about that and thinking it's not fair and all kind of emotional uh sort of response to that but ultimately I learned to a large degree to use it to my advantage yes I'm uh young so that I have more energy and I'm more Innovative or modern and I'm more in tune with what's going on in the world and then I'm Russian so I actually quite direct and a lot a lot of people do appreciate that so people

find it easier to to interact and being a female is actually in most cases becoming an advantage more and more because there are ways that I can find the paths to to a solution or to a decision that may not be possible for a man so it's a great great characteristics that can be leveraged to an advantage just need to learn that have you have you got specific examples of that where you really found that that was super helpful any of those three kind of areas on the Russian side so there was a saying even in William Hill at some point that uh or or

being my boss will say you need to elen you need to go rushing on them so and I was not in a bad way but it's almost like you need to get stuff done be very structured and direct and driven and things like that and and people already appreciated and it became a joke in a way and then I also felt that because that became a joke and it's kind of became a a theme to a certain extent about around me I started to use it to my advantage and I would feel more comfortable be myself and not try to kind of be a little

bit more diplomatic where I would just be more comfortable to be who I am I think it's also the good thing is that my manager and my team my team I mean the peer group realized that this is a an additional skill that they may need sometimes who will be openly challenging asking difficult questions pushing for things get done that's a complimentary skill for people who may not be very vocal or be over diplomatic in in a way so some balance of of that could be very useful so that makes a lot of sense and and that's super super helpful because I think one of

the big things is that often when we try to we try to please or we try to show ourselves in a way that we're not we we like you you're almost you're wearing a mask right and that makes it that makes it really difficult to interact with people and people see right through that it's it it it doesn't make you a leader to follow so from that cultural background it's you've been direct all your life I suppose that also has gotten you into trouble sometimes or maybe even uh reactions that you know you didn't expect how did you deal with that definitely so and I

think my my two years in Asia kind of polished my Russian Heritage quite a bit because simply it's a very different culture it's a very different way of interacting especially with a woman I mean big operations in Japan and it it's just a very different environment and being Russian wouldn't get me anywhere and I've learned that very very quickly thankfully but it also gave me perspective on where to use and how to use the toolkit I have because it is my toolkit I do get stuff done and that's part of who I am and what I do so that gave me just a different perspective

of how to use it in the places where it's appropriate and how to kind of make it less visible and uh that much into your face so so definitely had some issues where people would just ignore me because they couldn't understand why would I even say anything and that's back to young woman Russian so I think it's a combination of everything but as I said I try to reflect and observe and understand what works and what doesn't and sometimes you just need to make sure that you don't just use the same toolkit for everything because one doesn't fit all back to what I probably repeating

myself you need to listen first maybe before you say anything and that may help to kind of make sure that you try to achieve success to start with rather than after a few failures before that so yeah great advice adaptive leadership such a such a key skill so let's talk a little bit about being successful as a woman in you know male dominated industry and something that's I suppose yeah was being worked towards but it's still like miles behind where it should be so so tell me a little bit more about that you you mentioned that also as a as a strength but I also

love to hear from you what you'd say to women in the industry that perhaps feel that they're hitting a ceiling because of how they're being perceived or perhaps because of a lack of opportunities talk to me a little bit about about that and how that's gone for you and and what you would advise other women in the industry I think they're twofold one thing I would like to a little bit of a call to action maybe for women in my position that we should help women that are minus one minus two and so on and so forth because that's it it make it easier for

them in many ways that became very very very natural for me so I can say that complete coincidence it was no the intentional sort of selection criteria or anything but then William Hill out of 10 direct reports I had seven women and is just because they were great and they were better than anyone else and it it it it's just I gave them a chance it was no preconception against that so I think for me an advice C Level or even cus one tried to give it a little bit extra attention and be a spokesman for colleagues of female colleagues and then for those who

are still kind of on the journey from my perspective just be yourself I think if you try to mimic your male colleagues Behavior that's not going to get you anywhere because you know a man you're a woman so try to think about what what is your advantage what is your differentiator uh apart from longer hair and and and different type of uh I don't know clothing what additional leadership skills do you have or different type of different qualities that men may not have and try to use them as as much as possible I think you just need to grab an opportunity use the skills that

nobody else have from the female side but in general I mean if you want to be cre you there's you either you're in digital marketing or you in I don't know product development uh uh normally heavily M dominated but you're still an expert in your field and on top of that you probably have other things that 90% of your sort of competitors on a career Journey won't have so just instead of trying to hide it and mimic the rest be yourself use what you have to your advantage and maybe sometimes highlight it and when you have a conversation a career discussion or progression discussion with

your boss say well I'm actually much better with empathy and I'm a much better leader for my team and make sure you do notice that and that it goes on record because sometimes people ignore that or don't count for it not because they don't want to it just because it didn't come to their mind and on top of that I'm a great expert functional expert in what I do I also have this and that and that and that's probably will be the differentiator because we are built differently from the way we think the way we do things between web men and women in most ways

which is good and that's why I'm not ever would recommend to have a 100% female team as much as it's wrong to have a 100% male team I think it's a great balance and the the research says the most effective teams are 50/50 so I think in general you're so right diversity even taking it Beyond Man versus woman diversity is so important in a team right we don't want just copycats of each other because that brings no new knowledge that brings no new ideas that brings no new that doesn't bring any in in Innovation or transformation so I think it's so right and I think

there I don't know if this is true but often I believe that that's where people feel stuck almost if they're looking at okay I want to move I want to progress I need to you you said it earlier I need to be the same as this other person well you don't you bring your own unique skills and character traits and and cultural traits and you know beliefs to to that role and that's actually exactly what's needed 100% agree and one of the biggest skills for a leader is to be able to pick that team in a way that they complement each other they don't repeat

each other they complement each other and that means that there will be different personalities different backgrounds different genders but you're totally right it's not just about gender I mean just by having a rational breed a French an American and a Spanish in the same team already gives you a lot of diversity and different perspective and different way of thinking and different way of approaching problems and and I think it's very important one of the big things that I often see with leaders it doesn't really matter what level but where it happens a lot in gaming there's a people progress really quickly in their career it's

because there's a shallow shallow talent pool often people that you know are good at what they're do they're experts in their field they get progressed really quickly and sometimes they lack a little bit of leadership skills and and sometimes that goes together with fear of failure and and wanting to step up and that creates this almost this micromanagement culture where you find it difficult to have that diversity right to to lean into different viewpoints because people almost want to control what that team looks like have you ever experienced that where you see people have progressed really quickly in their careers perhaps are struggling to let

go of some of the responsibilities that they've had and therefore don't structure their teams in a way that is maybe best for the business yes I have seen that before numerous occasions I think and maybe not at the sea level that much General as progress letting go is a is a very important skill and this is also determines if you can't let go yourself there's also determines how good you are with prioritization and in the world of very highly growing Innovative industry like we are and there's a lot happening you need to be very focused on what you're actually going to focus on because you

can't do everything you can't do and this and that and Casual gaming and uh free to play and innovate and end to Market and mature market share and do retail Omni Channel and whatever right so there are so many things that you can do you need to really pick what you are going to do and what you're not going to do and I think the ability of maturing and letting go even things that you think are really important and really uh exciting and you're so used to them can say okay now I am one step up two step UPS I have to stop because I

need to do this I cannot do the new five things and the five things I used to be doing before I need to build the team that I can trust to do those five things and I only focus on the other five because otherwise uh you're probably going to fail in your new role because you will genuinely navigate to what you know and you're never going to grow into the new activities new skills new areas of responsibility and so on and so forth so I think when you progress through your career you really need to say okay now how do I make sure that whatever

I've built for for some period of time doesn't collapse with me go going out but equally I now need to focus on something different bigger whatever that may be and that's at a very very important scale of Letting Go which is basically a prioritization call a fantastic advice it is such a difficult part of it because we often think that when we are progressing in our career you think about maybe imposter syndrome hits you a bit and you feel about you think about all of the things that you now need to learn or that you need to develop because you're new to that role and

of course is going to be outside of your comfort zone so you're going to feel a little bit uncomfortable but the the advice you never hear which is yours is what are the things that you need to let go of so that you can actually get new things in right start doing new things and very often we think about all of the new things that we need to learn instead of the things that the baggage that we still hold that we just need to drop but I also think and I don't know it's probably one of the things that is easier to do for women

than for men is that I wouldn't I never mind it to have I didn't never had an issue to go and say I don't know right yeah okay I very humble about it I'm I never said I don't think I can do it I said I don't know I need to learn help me yeah I'd love to learn I want to listen I want to understand and you know better so I think not be afraid of the fact that you are stepping in into new role or a more senior role there will be things that you don't know that by default otherwise it's not interesting

right so there will be things that new new to to new responsibility new capability that you need to develop uh I don't know new people you need to manage and they could be skills that you've never been exposed to before at all and the Curiosity and ability to listen and being humble about the fact that it's fine not to know I think is very critical cuz if you're going to try to pretend that you do people who do know they would see that you actually don't have a clue what you talking about and that may impact your external perception which may fuel back even further

your own insecurity and your own further sort of no I know I know I know and then you feel uncomfortable about this but I think being comfortable about the fact that you don't know certain things and that's absolutely fine is is also a very good thing saying and it's probably and and maybe I'm generalizing but it's I think easier to do for women than for a man to C help me I so what advice would you give with some for somebody that is struggling with that with perhaps feeling comfortable with saying that they don't know or that perhaps feels that they have to meet certain

standards but they when they look at themselves in the mirror they they feel that they're absolutely not there yet what would you what would you say to them what's some steps that they could take well I think it's first of all the the things if you don't believe genuinely don't believe you can do the role don't take it that's full stop because that can ruin maybe you want to do it but you need another year don't do something that you personally don't believe you can grow into or do if you got the role and you believe you can do it then believe in yourself right

so then look at yourself in the mirror and say I can do it and nobody going to prove the opposite and then the third thing I do advise people not to be afraid to be humble and yes I know sometimes it may be difficult to publicly accept that you don't know something but maybe pick up on few two three peers colleagues maybe your boss and say okay I I think I need help in these two three areas how would you recommend me to approach it whether it's via an additional training add coach coaching doing maybe also as a preparation if you think okay I'm planning

to step up into that bigger role where will be potentially my gaps in the future so you can already start to work on them in advance so I had that I said okay I don't I have no idea about panal management and it was I was quite nervous I mean I was I I had no doubts I can do it but I've never done this before to a large degree and then it was difficult for me to make sure that I stand next to my PB that they have been doing this for 20 years and I don't say something stupid so I said I don't

want pnl Management in my new role but I want the N hook ability to either run a project that involves pnl management or be involved in certain activities that are sort of part of that and and so on and so that will give me some additional skill set and equip me with these things for the future so when it comes to it I'm maybe you're never going to be 100% ready but I'm 50% ready so there is a gap to cover but it's not a a massive Gap it's a a little Gap and makes it easier and then also you can tell yourself that okay

I have done this maybe not at scale but I have done this so I can I know how to do it love it great advice because so often I think people almost feel that they will miss the opportunity if they don't Bluff their way into it you know and it's just it's always the wrong way the wrong thing to do so if that's you and you're listening don't do it quick break here if you're ahead of director VP or executive in I gaming who's successful at work but is finding it hard to achieve balance in life and switch off from work then I've got something

that's going to help on the third of February we are launching the I gaming leader reset a six- week coaching program in which I will personally work with 15 igaming leaders to build habits for sustainable high performance all in just 20 minutes a day it's limited to only 15 leaders so if that's something that you want to know a little bit more about head over to igaming leer.com and I hope to see you there now let's get back to our conversation okay cool we had a question from uh one of our guys in The Mastermind uh Mastermind Community Fint and he said you spent a

decade in tobacco before gaming both like we talked about in the beginning both Industries face similar challenges with regulation public perception what are some of the insights that you feel could help gaming navigate these challenges specifically maybe around lobbying or sponsorship or advertising or any of you know the typical areas that uh we both struggle with so so the biggest advice is start transforming from inside when you can not when you're forced to it's a power of a choice because when you are in order in situation where in a huge pressure of Regulation you are already under pressure and you probably your margins your Revenue

channels Etc already Under Pressure start thinking of how can you transform your industry before while you still have cash coming you're still profitable you have uh an ability to make right decisions rather than decisions that you have to make because they are very short-term focused you also have time to make mistakes and I think tobacco knowing what's coming back in 2000 early 2000s a lot of companies at different pace started to focus on two things how to make business more efficient because they knew that at some point the margins will come under pressure and the second thing is how do we innovate because there will

be across Europe and multiple countries there will be issues with Market the public perception the regulation that's why we have a such a enormous amount of Vaper or non-tobacco products we called them B new generation products and so on and so forth but when you look back there only few companies that actually came out successful or more successful than the others if you think about the 20 25 years ago there were quite a few companies broadly performing well equally well and now there some performing better than the others on the contrary there is a lot of Entry now where vaping which are small companies have

nothing to do which creates a big problem for big tobacco giants like B like Philip Morris and how do they take that market and how do they transform that market and how they predict these things to happen because I think gaming will be very similar is a more and more and more pressure but people not going to stop gambling they want to play play a bat they want to play a game there's a lot of casual gaming that is now running right left and center with a very very different monetization model because it's now or start thinking about now because it's still there's still a

lot up for grabs but eventually this needs to transform and one way or the other into substantially more cash but casual way of spending time what's going to happen and what's going to drive it is it marketing is it digital is it new type of product and proposition I think it's it's this the future will show but whoever spends time on this now will be the winner 10 10 years down the line or 20 years which one of the big problems in gaming I think because most companies are so shortterm focused with with you know instant revenues that they forget about the longterm but it

is it is inevitable it also kind of leads me to a question from from Rob really about o win and you've got loads of experience obviously with with leading business transformation and he was asking now being or what's your views on turning around national lottery sales is there a silver buet bullet around product Innovation or technology or does it require you know a more comprehensive approach and I I appreciate this is not a black or white answer but I'd love to kind of hear what you what your thoughts are or not I think there is definitely uh there's no Silver Bullet there is no one

Silver Bullet I think there is a lot of like in any business it's up to product it's about proposition it's about technology it's about digital products and how good they are and what the customer journey and what service they will provide to our customers and how do they react to that so I think there's a lot that needs to happen and uh a lot that needs to be done to make UK National ly success yes it's a gaming business but ultimately it's a technology business especially when it comes to ey gaming and uh a big part of what we do is innovating digitally so from

our perspective Technologies is under underpins everything so we need to sort out the technology side before we go any further exactly what we've just discussed on regulatory pressure competitive pressure If years ago it's a monopoly it's only product on the market whether it's good or bad people will buy it now there are so many adjacent type services that are not Lottery lottery but the likes of competitions and radio competitions om and internet competitions that are kind of very adjacent to what Lottery does it creat create substantially more pressure on being Innovative being better with customer rich with customer service with customer Journeys and so on

and so forth and there's a lot of work to do but there's a good team there good good I'm happy to hear that my final question is really around your own journey and what you would advise advise others that are perhaps a few steps behind you on a similar Journey so if you would go back let's say five six years what's the advice that you would give yourself or if you're very happy with exactly what you've done what are what are some of the encouragement you would give yourself yeah I am actually quite happy so I I I'm as I said at the very beginning

I've been lucky that I took opportunities and opportunities did take me where I'm quite happy but my advice and encouragement would be don't be afraid to take something that may look that doesn't bring anywhere so or it's not be your career plan because you never know what can be at the end of it and what else you're going to learn in addition to what you already know so take opportunities see what comes out there is no bad experience every experience is good experience I had and I I'll be very specific on that example I had a venture into Telco for 9 months it wasn't a

good decision for me personally it wasn't a good decision but I've learned so much during those nine months so I don't regret a second of it was it a right career move I'm not sure was it a good experience 100% so I think Tech opportunities when they are don't be afraid to fail sometimes because failure is is is a good experience as well love it back to yourself like that's literally what I'm hearing in everything that you've said so far back yourself right like stand for yourself and and believe in yourself super super inspirational thank you so much for for sharing your story and being

on the I gaming leader really love talking to you thank you very much Le thank you thank you for joining me on the igaming leader podcast if you enjoyed today's episode head over to igaming leer.com for more conversations and insights don't forget to subscribe to this podcast I'm your host Leo Judkins and hope to see you next week

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