Mary Beth Higgins says she’s learned it’s different at the top.
In April, Higgins, Affinity’s Gaming chief financial officer, became its third CEO in a year, succeeding Anthony Rodio, who left to become CEO of Caesars Entertainment. The move made Higgins the third active CEO at a casino operating company.
“I’m trying to help people focus on the job at hand and not the nonsense above, and to try and provide some stability and leadership,” Higgins said, speaking as part of a panel discussion on Powerful Women Affecting Powerful Change at this week’s Global Gaming Expo. “I understand where the angst comes from.”
Higgins, who previously worked as a CFO for a Caesars Entertainment subsidiary and later as the CFO of Herbst Gaming, joined Affinity in June 2018. She called herself “a great wingman” as a CFO for 20 years.
She said that, as CFO, she could always tell the CEO to proceed with an idea, with the caveat being that Higgins would present the facts and then tell the CEO to “make that decision if you want.”
That way, she joked, she could “Monday morning quarterback” all she wanted.
“Now, all of a sudden, I know I will get Monday morning quarterbacked,” Higgins said. “It’s a very interesting change because as a woman – this sounds terrible – the second chair was easy for me. I could be powerful but not obvious. It’s a very unique change that I have wrestled with… in the organization and in my own life.”
Higgins said one manages through change by “leading and bringing what you have” and seeing a better day.
Affinity currently operates 11 casinos – five in Nevada, three in Colorado, two in Missouri and one in Iowa. The company in January agreed to sell the Colorado properties to Twin River Worldwide in a transaction expected to close next year.
Higgins, who was one of 10 children and has four children herself, said her experience as a woman and mother has helped guide her. She said she understands the responsibilities that parents, especially mothers, have and how people are trying to have balance in their lives between work and home.
Some of the other highlights from the panel discussion:
Sandra Douglass Morgan, chairwoman of the Nevada Gaming Control Board, said part of the stamp she wants to put on the agency is diversity when it looks to fill open positions.
“I want to make sure more women and people of color are in the regulatory field,” Morgan said. “We as regulators need to communicate and work with our external partners… (Diversity) helps us become better regulators.”
Morgan cited the first female chairwoman of the board – her predecessor, Becky Harris, now an academic fellow at UNLV’s International Center for Gaming Regulation – and noted that she currently serves with the second African American board member, Terry Johnson.
“I’m only the third person of color to serve on the board, and the second woman,” she said. “That can be celebrated, but it’s 2019. That is a shame. I was given an amazing opportunity, and I saw that opportunity. As a woman of color and broadly, you have to fight for what you want. We have to work hard. You have to make it known that you are ready and able for those leadership opportunities.”
Lynn Valbuena, chairwoman of the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians in California, talked about how her reservation in the foothills has changed over the years with the start of gaming. It was orange and apricot groves and dirt roads, and she recalled people lined up with paper sacks to get commodities from the welfare truck.
#FromTheFloor #exclusive – 'Powerful women' panel talks about change at G2E. –@BrianBuckWargo, CDC Gaming. https://t.co/eOVJpVnirn #CDCgaming @G2Eshows
— CDC Gaming (@CDCNewswire) October 19, 2019
“I remember putting a bowl of Corn Flakes under a water faucet because we didn’t have milk, and when we did have milk it was powdered,” Valbuena said. “We have come a long way over the last 33 years since (the introduction of) tribal government gaming.”
The San Manuel casino operation has roughly 5,000 employees, and many companies who do business with the tribe said they wouldn’t exist without it, Valbuena said.
