Seizing?Opportunities and Learning from a Legend: My Conversation With Steve Schwarzman

For all of us focused on the US gaming market, having G2E back in our calendars was incredible. A big thank-you to the AGA!?

The conference was a blast from start to finish: we took off in Ernie Moody’s airplane hanger?for?GeoComply’s 9th annual pre-G2E party, which was an incredible evening of reunion and celebration with our friends and partners across the globe. This year's?party raised funds for Conscious Gaming’s new chapter, which I talked about in an earlier post. A special?thanks to Sightline Payments and Sporting News for their generosity!

I was honored to have the opportunity to discuss "Today's?Visionaries: A New Era for Gaming"?with?Richard “Boz” Bosworth, Omer Sattar, and Hector Fernandez, as well as contemplating strategies for "Educating the Customer on Spotting Bad Actors"?with?Niki Metzgar-Schall,?Jonathan Fishner, and?Darren Lian.

The week ended with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to spend 45 minutes talking to the one and only Steve Schwarzman. I’ve always admired Blackstone’s astonishing rise from afar, and when GeoComply began its institutional investment journey we were truly inspired by our overlap in values. After we?received?Blackstone's investment,?I?selected Stephen’s excellent memoir,?What It Takes, as the first fall reading at our internal book club. The book centres around Stephen’s 25 rules for work and life, told through moments from childhood escapades to Wall Street adventures; to see the person behind the stories was nothing short of extraordinary.

Stephen, having lived through countless seasons of success, is generous with wisdom. Central to his philosophy is the team as a fundamental, cellular unit: hiring the right person from the start is the essential first step, followed by creating a space for open conversation and collaboration. As a fellow organizational leader myself, it is important and heartwarming to hear from the CEO of Blackstone that accountability cannot be delegated — no one person is above making mistakes, and only teams of smart people can truly solve every problem.

Thank you, Stephen, for spending time with our team; it is a privilege and we cannot wait to develop our relationship with Blackstone further. The inspirations gathered from this week will fuel me for months to come.