2009 GREAT WOMEN OF GAMING
Proven leader
Patti S. Hart
Chief Executive Officer and President
International Game Technology
Patti Hart says she's not a very interesting person. However, our industry knows that Hart, CEO and president of IGT, is an extremely intriguing and amazing woman. She is, after all, the head of a major, publicly-traded company in the gaming space.
Hart grew up near Chicago, in a family of blue collar workers. Hart thinks of herself as "the common person," who made her way up in the business world by working hard, taking responsibility and delivering results. Hart sees her family as one of the greatest gifts in her life. She says: "It's a great reminder for me that not everyone is caught up in the same things that CEOs are caught up in. And you have to remind yourself of that every day. My employees live lives more like my family than they live lives like me."
Hart has already landed a position at the top. She became CEO and president at IGT in April 2009, after serving as a member of the company's board of directors since 2006. Hart's love of entertainment and technology brought her to gaming.
Hart has more than 20 years of operational and executive experience in the telecommunications and consumer broadband industries. She has also been an active member of more than 10 corporate boards of directors. Hart has continuously brought lessons learned from one industry to the next. Hart says: "Each time I'm adding another layer to my experience and intuition. I do think it does take a level of courage and confidence to make that change and make yourself vulnerable again."
In her short time at IGT, Hart has re-energized the company from top to bottom by creating an environment of accountability, open communication and managing against set goals and objectives. She has addressed weaknesses in debt maturities, focused on creative resources and building more compelling game content, made herself available to all 5,000 IGT employees, and met with leadership of all major U.S. and international customers and significant shareholders of IGT.
Hart has also put a new media organization in place at IGT. She says you can expect to see a lot more work from IGT in that space in the coming year. She strongly believes gaming professionals and players are spending their time using social applications in their daily life, and that social and new media are the communication platforms of the future. "Any company that isn't using social media as a way to talk to their employees, shareholders, customers and end users, I think is missing a huge opportunity," she says.
The professional accomplishment Hart is most proud of is the development of people she has worked with so far. Hart says, "For me, one of the greatest feelings is to see someone take on the next challenge and to have them come back and say, 'You know that advice you gave me? It is still ringing in my ear.' "
On a personal level, Hart is proud of the time she has been able to dedicate to her family amidst her booming career. Hart is married and has a 24-year-old son. She took a break from working full time outside of the home twice in her son's life so she could be with him before he entered school and as he was leaving college. "I took a step back and said, being a mom has to be a priority right now," she explains.
Hart's service to the community is impressive. She has served on the Illinois Task Force for Literacy and holds a board of visitors position at Duke University's Public Policy School. A proponent of the arts, Hart has served on the Southern Methodist University Meadows Art School board and has long held a seat on the board of the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago.
Hart says she has to thank the good and patient role models she looked to early in her career: "People that really took the time to teach me, and let me make mistakes and coach me and challenge me. That's been really helpful." Now she looks to Philip Satre, chairman of the board at IGT, and calls him the "consummate role model" for his leadership skills, knowledge, experience and willingness to share it all.
Satre says Hart is unquestionably a star. "I can think of few women in gaming who have left such a large imprint on a major company in the industry in so little time."
Hart does have female peers now, but wishes she had a female mentor. She believes this is changing as more women in the business—including her—are making a conscious effort to look for women working their way up and spend time with them.
Her advice for other women in gaming is: "When you make a decision to assume responsibility at whatever level, just be prepared for that, it's not as easy, having it all. Being a mom, being a wife, being a daughter, being a boss and being an employee and all of that. It's really not so easy." Hart says you must make sacrifices and reset your priorities on a regular basis.
Looking forward, Hart's motivation comes from working to upgrade the level of service for customers and provide a clearer path for work for employees. "You hear a theme in my life that I'm really about delighting and delivering to people," Hart explains.
On days that she needs a little extra motivation, she stops in at one of IGT's customer's casinos. "Seeing our products at work and watching the guests enjoy our products is a great source of energy for me, and it puts things into perspective," she notes. SKC
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