Holly Gagnon still stays in touch with a former Foxwoods executive who helped her career by trusting that she could handle whatever task he threw her way during the casino’s 1992 opening.
Kelly Kehn recalls her introduction to the gambling world, when a supervisor with the Jockey Club in Louisville, Kentucky, put her on the media team at the Kentucky Derby even though she was in her first job out of college.
“The fact that he didn’t even ask any questions, like this is the way it was meant to be, is something I take with me everywhere I go,” Kehn says. “I try to do the same for other people who are young and keen and want to do a good job.”
That’s the philosophy behind the second OpenDoors social-media campaign, launched Wednesday by the All-in Diversity Project, a London-based nonprofit organization focused on diversity, inclusion and workplace equality in the gaming industry. Kehn is co-founder of All-in, which is funded by a variety of gaming-industry companies.
The effort encourages gaming-industry professionals to acknowledge publicly those who aided their career development, then commit to following that example by mentoring someone themselves. All-in asks gaming employees to post comments on social media using #OpenDoors. The drive will continue through March 8, International Women’s Day.
Last year’s campaign had 300 or more in-person participants at the pre-pandemic ICE London. Kehn says the drive also generated social-media posts by gaming employees ranging from entry-level staffers to company chairpersons, resulting in more than a million views on the various platforms.
This year’s OpenDoors effort also features a plan to fund scholarships for at least two aspiring leaders from under-represented groups to attend the Executive Development Program sponsored by the International Gaming Institute at University of Nevada–Las Vegas, and the College of Business and Extended Studies at University of Nevada–Reno. The goal is GBP£20,000, or about US$28,000.
Gagnon, a distinguished fellow at the Gaming Institute and co-moderator of the 2020 development program, says the annual development program draws gaming executives from around the world for a rigorous week, combining instruction from industry leaders, team projects and networking. Sessions are usually held in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, although the 2020 program was done virtually due to the COVID pandemic. Gagnon hopes it will return to in-person sessions this year.
Scholarship applications will be available through the All-in Diversity Project website, probably in late March.
Gagnon describes the program schedule as “intense.” Classes meet throughout the day, with topics such as strategic planning, international issues, crisis management, social impact, new technology and marketing. Then attendees form into teams to work on a weeklong project that she says is “very, very competitive.”
Fittingly, the 2020 project topic was crisis management and teams had to develop handbooks for various situations, she says. In 2019, each team was given a scenario in which they inherited a fortune, but had to use the money to buy one or more casinos. The challenge was to identify which casinos they would buy and how they would operate.
Corporate sponsors who have committed to this year’s OpenDoors project include Penn National Gaming, Hero Gaming, Interactive Gaming Group, Insight Global, Playtech, Pronet Gaming and Facebook Gaming. Individuals and businesses can contribute at this GoFundMe site.
Kehn says people often don’t realize how much impact a co-worker or supervisor can have. The OpenDoors effort aims to highlight that.
“This campaign is really important to bring it to the forefront and say, ‘Look, I can have a positive impact on someone or a negative impact on someone, but I’m definitely going to have an impact,’” she says.
Gagnon says the campaign is founded on the idea of spotlighting people who helped others without thought of getting recognized for it. She advises her children and others to keep track of those who help them, especially when something good happens at work.
“Better than any bonus, better than any financial gain is the phone call you get when (someone you mentored) gets promoted and they say, ‘I learned stuff from you,’” she says.
“People need to recognize that you don’t get there alone, and people need to recognize the value of doing this for others.”
