After 12 years at BMM Testlabs, Drew Pawlak has spent his last 5 years at land-based and iGaming supplier AGS, as Vice President of Latin America and General Manager of Mexico. Over his extensive career, he has learned a lot about different markets and met some of the most brilliant minds of the industry. That’s why we are proud to present this wonderful ‘G&M 1on1’ meeting with him. We spent one hour and enjoyed an unmissable conversation with this well-recognized executive, praised by his peers.
His upbringing and his family values, his starting and long experience in the gaming industry, the awards and recognition, the people who admires within the sector, his personal, long relationship with Latin America, his favorite countries, the product suite and his job at AGS and the future trends of gaming are the main topics of this extensive dialogue.
Drew has a vast experience in client services, technology, products and the ability to lead the way and help grow a new business in a unique market space. He can also take that action into words, expressing ideas, histories and anecdotes that made this one of the richest interview of this cycle.
We highlight here a few excerpts of the chat:
ABOUT HIS CONTRIBUTION TO THE INDUSTRY
“The biggest contribution I’ve done these 15 years into the gambling world is, at first, to help BMM to be a global lab and be able to install into the U.S. That has made the certification segment more competitive. That space also gave me a really particular, unique view of the gambling world. Then, I could make some good decisions in the second part of my career, on the suppliers’ side.”
ABOUT AGS AND THE CORE VALUES
David Lopez has rebuilt AGS to the great company it is today. Our biggest asset is our people. For instance, my team in Mexico is amazing. They have my back and I have theirs. Our core employee values are reflected in the AGS Playbook. ‘Autonomy’ is one of the key words. David gave me a lot of autonomy for me to build my division in Mexico. Other value that I like is ‘Make your mother proud.’ I truly do care about everything: my team, the customers, our products, what AGS is developing.”
ABOUT BUSINESS IN LATIN AMERICA
“Latin America has well developed, become more mature. The markets have ordered and formalized. In regards of gambling, my first interaction with LatAm was in 2004. But I’ve been there and know the region for over 20 years. Operators have a more personal level of service, a more close approach to their clients. AGS first decided to focus on Mexico. With Eduardo Alvarez and our team, we spent the last 4 years really investing into the Mexican market, with strong results. We also have a great distributor (Permaquim) in Argentina. We will land soon in Peru as well. Chile is a fantastic market for the years to come. Colombia is still challenging for me because of some of their importation rules. And there is obviously the constant talk about Brazil.”
You can access and enjoy this interview for free by clicking on the following link of the G&M News’ YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLrUGcYDhQY.