William Hill has been looking to solidify their board for a little while now, and has now named Matt Ashley as the new Chief Financial Officer (CFO) designate, and Stephen Parry as their new Chief Operating Officer (COO).
Ashley is expected to take his role as CFO starting April 6. He’ll also take on the role of Executive Director of the William Hill board, replacing outgoing CFO Ruth Prior, who will step down on May 15. Prior was announced to be leaving the company in January.
Ashley was previously CFO at National Express, eventually serving as their as President and CEO for North American business. Before leaving that company, he finally held the role of Group Business Development Director. He’s also been director of transport, infrastructure and listed companies at Deloitte LLP.
William Hill previously thought they may have a candidate for CFO in Adrian Marsh, but he decided to stay with his current employer, DS Smith, due to “current unprecedented circumstances.”
Parry won’t be joining the board just yet, but he’s expected to be fully on board later this year. He’s leaving Flutter Entertainment, where he was Integration Director, and generally worked on the Flutter-Stars merger transaction.
“These two key appointments reinforce our focus on building a high calibre team. Matt and Stephen bring significant strengths to the Company,” CEO Ulrik Bengtsson said. “Matt has a wealth of international financial and US experience as well as being an experienced CFO of a FTSE 250 Listed company.”
Bengtsson was also pretty happy about Parry coming on board. “Stephen comes with a first-class track record of driving digital change, operational focus and customer experience in senior roles at Vodafone and Flutter. I look forward to welcoming them both to William Hill.”
The duo join the company at a very interesting time, to say the least. William Hill shares have tanked thanks to the coronavirus, and the company is coming off a transformational year, where retail sales were slashed thanks to new U.K. regulations. While online sales have improved dramatically, the crazy time that we live in led their U.S. CEO, Joe Asher, to donate his personal salary to employees. Parry and Ashley will have quite the challenge in front of them.
