Global sports-betting and gaming group, GVC Holdings has announced the appointment of Sandeep Tiku as the group’s newest chief operating officer, effective immediately.

Having originally joined GVC as IT Director in 2014, Tiku became the group’s chief technology officer in 2016, a role in which he remained for the past four years.

Before joining GVC, the new COO spent 14 years at Valtech, a global digital agency focused on business transformation, where he was a global SMAC (Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud) practice head working for large enterprises in e-commerce and the digital and mobile spaces.

Shay Segev, chief executive officer, commented: “I am delighted to be promoting GVC talent. Sandeep brings unparalleled experience and insight to the role of COO. We are first and foremost a technology business and this is at the heart of what we do – supporting customer services, trading, product and our people.  

“It therefore makes sense for him to take on this broader role. His leadership of our technology strategy and teams, combined with his knowledge of our legacy stack and proven results through our integrations, means that he is the right person for the job.

“I’d also like to congratulate Marc and Andy who both are operational experts with proven track records of delivering large-scale change initiatives. Their progression to the senior leadership team is richly deserved.”

Throughout his time with GVC, Tiku has led a number of significant technology and platform transformation programs involving technological revolution, people re-skilling and innovation, culminating in the completion of GVC’s industry-leading proprietary gaming platform. 

A statement released by GVC read: “Sandeep’s work has ably supported multiple acquisitions of global gambling companies and the successful integration of these businesses thereafter. Sandeep was pivotal in the technical migration of Ladbrokes Coral onto the Group’s proprietary technology platform. 

“The Ladbrokes Coral migration was the largest that GVC has completed and represented one of the final parts of what was the most complex integration process in the gambling industry to-date.”

GVC also revealed the promotions of both Marc Lange, who now becomes the group’s new Chief of Staff to the CEO, and Andy Hicks, GVC’s managing director of retail, who will henceforth form part of the GVC senior leadership team and will also report directly to the CEO. 

Regarding the currently vacant role of CTO, GVC is, as of the moment, searching for Tiku’s replacement.