Novomatic Italia has a new board of directors with Franco Rota heading it as chairman.
Rota has been part of the management team at the company since 2007 when it entered Italy, where Novomatic has since become a major player, particularly with VLTs.
He said: “There is no segment of the Italian gaming market that we have not scrutinised to deliver highly specialised and advanced knowhow. We started in Italy 12 years ago with a handful of employees and today we have 2,800.”
Rota is joined by Olga Rodrigo as CEO. Rodrigo has been in the Italian gaming market since it was formally regulated. She was previously CFO of Novomatic Spain but has now returned to her native Italy in a key role.
Other directors include CFO Markus Buechele, who has been with Novomatic since 2006 in Austria and who joined the Italian subsidiary board in 2008. A newcomer is Karl Plank, the COO, a noted Italian entrepreneur who joined Novomatic when it took over his company Allstar. Another relatively new face is Bartholomäus Czapkiewicz, the CTO over the past 18 months.
In a statement, Novomatic Italia described its market as “stimulating for Novomatic group, despite increasingly stringent fiscal pressure.”
The statement said: “Italy’s horizon is expanding, now more than ever, towards growth and expansion opportunities. It is the largest European gaming market in terms of the number of active gaming machines, a fact that is reflected by the Novomatic Group’s sustained commitment to this market and the latest decision to promote a new course with a strategic restructuring and nomination of a new board.”
