With a career spanning over three decades, Richard Dennys, CEO of Game Lounge has navigated the complexities of corporate life, from traditional industries to the dynamic world of iGaming. His unique approach, rooted in a deep understanding of human potential and organizational efficiency, has led to groundbreaking initiatives that prioritize employee well-being, innovation, and sustainable growth. In this interview, explore how he is redefining the future of work in the industry.
With a career spanning over three decades, what pivotal moments have shaped your leadership philosophy, and how do they influence your role as CEO of Game Lounge?
Well, I left Manchester Uni in 1994 (which blows my mind) So it’s actually now three not two decades!
If I look back at the pivotal moments which have shaped my leadership beliefs, they are very much a mix of the brilliant and terrible. I’ve worked for geniuses and tyrants; and learned so much from both types. I have experienced great successes and disastrous failures; often very closely linked. I’ve also managed and led some really great people, as well as plenty of frauds and time-stealers. I really do subscribe to the adage; “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”. I fear very little these days and have realised that life – and one’s career – is far too short to spend with and on toxic people or trying to work out or fix any OPPs (other people’s problems). Time spent with curious, intelligent, motivated people – ideally smarter than yourself – is never wasted. In my experience, successful leadership is simply getting people like that to find a common purpose and work hard together to reach and achieve it.
Having worked in prominent organizations like PwC, BBC, and Nokia, what unique leadership insights have you brought to the iGaming industry?
I need to be working somewhere I can see out of the windows (both literally and metaphorically) and with people who don’t treat their own career success as a zero-sum game against those around them.
Well those three mentioned are among the lowest enjoyed parts of my career, even though they are the most often recalled. All were relatively short and painful. All were highly political and required a lot of time, very far from any actual work and more around building consensual alignment (whatever that means) to get shit done. I am driven by the energetic momentum of those around me and, the larger the business, the slower the momentum and lower the energy. So, around 10 years ago, I realised that ‘corporate’ life is not where I can ever thrive and have avoided it ever since. I need to be working somewhere I can see out of the windows (both literally and metaphorically) and with people who don’t treat their own career success as a zero-sum game against those around them.
What inspired you to prioritize workplace well-being and leadership autonomy at Game Lounge, and how has this shaped the company culture?
Simply because I am too protective of my own time to want to get dragged into every single decision that a company needs to make to achieve its aims. I absolutely believe that if you strive to create what Robert C Townsend calls a “world-class organisation” or Jim Collins calls “great”, then once those core beliefs are understood and followed by a team who passionately believes in being the best team member they can be to help and support each other every minute of their working day, then success can only follow that.
The “Level Up, Leap Forward” EVP initiative is an innovative approach to employee development. Could you elaborate on its goals and the impact it’s had on your team so far?
Game Lounge is more than simply 185 people coming to work each day to make more money for the company shareholders while helping our customers and readers to safely enjoy playing games. We want every minute we are together to be interesting, valuable and career enhancing. I talk a lot about removing manual processes; both at Game Lounge and at my previous company, I emphasise “more brains, less hands”; which means that if we can reduce friction and potential inertia by continuously innovating away from our slowest processes we will automatically speed up and get better. In terms of impact so far, our monthly profit per employee has risen 50% since I started so I would say it’s already working well.
The 4-day work week trial is a bold move in modern workplace management. What were the key takeaways from this initiative, and do you see it becoming a permanent policy?
In July and August each year a ‘half-day Friday’ was already in place. It’s a very hot month in Spain and Malta, where we are mainly based; plus, for our team in the Nordics, many take those months for their holidays. So even when we had some work hours on Fridays, not much got done or moved forward; our media output usually dropped around 30% those months anyway. So we decided to call it and declared the 4DWW trial for July and August 2024 only. We monitored output and it did drop, but only by 20% – so we have been very satisfied that the trial worked well. In speaking to the teams, it turned out that the prospect of the 3 day weekend forced some of the productivity discussions which had drifted for some time to be accelerated; the end result being that once we returned in September to 5DWW our output had automatically levelled up. Now we will repeat July and August 4DWW again in 2025 and have added April too since that is also usually a lower productivity month.
Distributed leadership is central to Game Lounge’s success. What strategies do you use to empower team leaders, and how has this approach contributed to organizational growth?
This approach requires extremely strong and smart teams who are not driven by territoriality or personal success greater than the organisation they work for. Very much the ‘one for all, all for one’ approach. If I grow, we all grow etc, and success follows.
This is something I learned whilst I was Chair of Governors at my daughter’s primary school many many years ago. With the help of the excellent Head Teacher, we put into place ways to completely empower all of the teaching staff and also the support team. Everyone became the ‘Head’ of their area. They didn’t need to ask permission for anything but needed to spend more time with each other to understand the core objectives and which part of the school they ‘owned and operated’. We all discussed topline data and they ran their own ‘operations’. Inside a year, we obtained an Outstanding OFSTED rating. We also slashed the need for controls or administrative processes. This approach requires extremely strong and smart teams who are not driven by territoriality or personal success greater than the organisation they work for. Very much the ‘one for all, all for one’ approach. If I grow, we all grow etc, and success follows.
As a leader championing productivity and mental well-being, how do you balance these priorities while driving business success in a competitive industry like iGaming?
I absolutely detest drama when leading and managing teams. Dramatic people don’t tend to last long in high pressure projects and struggle for consistency; they either. eventually jump out to new adventures or we ask them to do so. Achieving flow is everything. Drama kills flow. Sometimes people confuse passion and energy with drama. I have found that if you spend a little longer on the well-being of your teams, then the drama is pretty much eliminated. Generally, the best people or team members just want to know where a company is headed and how they can help to get everyone there. Also I am a big believer in the saying “misery loves company” so the happier your team, the less time you spend needing to sort out or eliminate any drama.
Looking ahead to 2025, what innovations and initiatives can we expect from Game Lounge, and how do you envision these shaping the future of work and employee engagement in the iGaming sector?
Well we have just split the company into two; one being the key core business of Game Lounge (GL) – our global iGaming affiliate media company working hard on creating useful and helpful guides to finding the best online casinos who keep their promises and their customers safe; and Game Lounge ‘X’ GLX incubator which has been launched to provide a test kitchen/special ops team for new operations, ideas and innovations. GL is successful, highly profitable and growing rapidly inside its current horizons. GLX has been put together to almost disrupt the way we are doing business right now; it will focus on new products, techniques and the potential interests and behaviours of customers who are currently inhabiting the next horizon.
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