Jason Walbridge started as SkyCity CEO in July, 2024. Photo / Jason Oxenham
Ex-New Zealand Army lieutenant Jason Walbridge recalls a key lesson from a sergeant major about leadership.
The new SkyCity Entertainment Group CEO learned rank alone has limited influence. Effective leadership transcends titles, a lesson he learned while serving on Scorpion tanks around Waiouru.
“People will only follow you out of curiosity for so long,” Walbridge recalls the sergeant major saying.
“He was a man that I respected immensely.” That’s stayed with him to this day.
“You can’t rely on rank or title when you’re trying to lead and motivate an organisation around a common goal. It’s about the need to lead teams and provide certainty and direction. Don’t be afraid of making decisions, knowing that you’re going to get a few of them wrong.”
Walbridge is a proud Kiwi and is a gambling specialist, who has worked the last 23 years in Las Vegas.
Most of his career has been overseas, but home has always been New Zealand and he and his family have always tried to get back when they could.
He was born in Kawakawa, the son of a software engineer, he recalls the family moved around New Zealand.
He went to Auckland Grammar, then shifted to Wellington and worked for about two years in sales and at a bank, “you know, those sorts of things that you do when you’re finding your way in life”.
He joined the Army in his early 20s and stayed for half a decade, serving in the armoured corps on armoured personnel carriers and Scorpions, recalling being fortunate to work with the Gurkhas in Hong Kong, in Germany with the British military attached to the Queen’s Dragoon Guards Regiment and in Australia.
He looks back on these years as a formative experience, given extensive responsibility at a relatively young age.
He left the Army to complete an MBA in international business at the Auckland Institute of Studies then soon joined the casino industry, initially in the 1990s with gaming and technology giant Aristocrat in Auckland where one of his customers was SkyCity.
ASX-listed Sydney-headquartered Aristocrat Leisure now trades around A$52 ($58) and has a market cap of A$33 billion.
“Aristocrat was a small company at the time. It was a growing industry and I was excited to be part of a focused team,” he recalls.
Walbridge had a number of different roles with that business which invited him to move to the US. He says he is prevented from gaming here in his role but if he is to bet, it’s the machines which interest him the most.
Most recently, he worked in the online gaming sector and was involved in Aristocrat’s A$1.6b acquisition of Neo Games in May.
He has held many positions for various US businesses and is described as a senior gaming industry executive with global operational experience in land-based and online digital gaming markets.
He accepted the SkyCity role partly to return to his roots but also due to timing. SkyCity is on the cusp of a major transformation and has an exciting future including introducing mandatory carded play next year, this month opening the new Horizon by SkyCity hotel and being poised to open the NZ International Convention Centre soon, he says.
“There is a lot of change in the pipeline. While it is going to take a lot of work, it is exciting and plainly put, I wanted to be a part of the exciting future we have coming.”
His appointment was announced on April 17 and he recalls receiving a call “out of the blue” from recruitment specialists who invited him to apply.
He started last month, during the same week SkyCity voluntarily agreed to a five-day closure in Auckland after apologising for harm caused to a gambler who the Department of Internal Affairs revealed had lost more than $1 million between 2017 and 2021.
A pōwhiri by Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei Trust was held on July 12 on the Auckland forecourt of the company’s main gaming headquarters beside Federal St.
“I couldn’t have asked for a more generous welcome from the employees of SkyCity and everyone - the New Zealand business community as well. It’s been fabulous.”
SkyCity’s board has given him a clear mandate: “That’s to continue building on the great work that’s already occurred in the area of improving our capability of caring for our customers, preventing the risk of financial crime and complying with anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism laws.”
JASON BEVAN WALBRIDGE
Anne Gibson has been the Herald’s property editor for 24 years, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.
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