Las Vegas Sands Corp. selected longtime company executive Rob Goldstein as president and chief operating officer on Thursday, replacing the retiring Mike Leven.
Goldstein has been with Las Vegas Sands since 1995, serving numerous executive positions for the company, including president of The Venetian Resort-Hotel-Casino and The Palazzo Resort Hotel Casino and the most recently, the president of global gaming operations. Goldstein has been responsible for developing Las Vegas Sands’ gaming business in Macau and Singapore, where the company collects about 80% of its annual revenue.
Goldstein said that the company will pursue new development opportunities worldwide. Las Vegas Sands operate three hotel-casinos in Macau and is building a 2.7 billion Paris-themed resort which is expected to open in 2016.
“For nearly 20 years, I’ve had the privilege of working with one of the world’s greatest entrepreneurs,” Goldstein said in a statement. “The tremendous success of this company is a testament to [chairman] Sheldon Adelson’s vision and determination and the dedication of our nearly 50,000 team members worldwide.”
“We’ve set a high standard with our success, and I’m focused on continuing to execute Sheldon’s vision and the strategic objectives laid out by our board of directors and management team,” Goldstein added.
“With Rob’s strong leadership, passion and energy, I’m fully confident we will expand our industry leadership to deliver even greater achievements in the years ahead,” Adelson, who also serves as CEO, said in a statement.
Leven was a retired hotel company executive and an independent board member since 2004 when Adelson asked him to become president in 2009 after firing longtime company president Bill Weidner during a management dispute. Mike Leven is up for retirement at the end of the year but will remain a member of the Las Vegas Sands board.
Damn A, Don’t let your tongue cut your throat
Investigators have determined that Iranian hacker activists were the ones who broke into servers belonging to the Sands corporation in February 2014, costing the company more than $40 million in damages and data recovery costs.
The hackers were acting in retaliation to Adelson‘s statement that Obama should detonate a nuclear bomb in Tehran, which stirred controversy around the world.
Sands is just one of many corporations to suffer a major data breach at the hands of cyber criminals. Target, Neiman Marcus and Home Depot were all attacked this year, as were Snapchat and Dropbox.
According to a report released by US cyber security firm Cylance entitled “Operation Cleaver,” Iran has been developing its cyber technology for the sake of military readiness, so that in the event of a conflict it has the ability to shut down core facilities around the world.
