David Blackman Email & Phone Number

England, United Kingdom

London, England, United Kingdom

Business and Operational lead for Digital Operations, designing, building and implementing key elements of Allwyn’s digital transition and transformation of the UK National Lottery. • Senior Business Lead for the design, build and delivery of the core Digital Operations for Payments and Subscriptions, Player Authentication, Geo-Location and the establishment of a ‘Single Customer View’ for National Lottery Digital Players. • Developed new strategic partnerships with major suppliers (across payments, customer authentication, data management and fraud management) and was the primary business lead for contracting those suppliers with Allwyn. • Strategy and operational delivery lead for Player Financial Vulnerability assessments, delivered as part of Allwyn’s overall Participant Protection strategy. • Business lead for the Digital Player data management project, ensuring a ‘One Player, One Account’ is delivered, underpinning Allwyn’s core commitment to operate with strong governance and propriety. • Provided senior leadership and subject matter expertise in the management of the relationship with the outgoing Licensee and the Gambling Commission. • Leadership Mentor within the D&I in Grocery Mentoring programme.

London, United Kingdom

Directly managing a senior Operations leadership team, leading a workforce of circa 250 people across sites in the UK and Gibraltar, and a key member of the Commercial Unit Leadership Team. Driving the evolution of the UK operation, whilst managing teams through the pandemic/remote working. • Supported and helped drive strategy for EMEA by providing customer insight to strategic goals• Forming and executing on operational objectives whilst also making recommendations to the Board on future investments, such as the development of an Operational Excellence function• Set up of operational team to launch Virgin Bet in the UK. • Drove Community Engagement ROI and profile. • Set up new integrated ‘Customer Due Diligence’ function to support evolving regulatory requirements. • Introduction of Intelligent Service Automation to deflect from live CS and drive customer adoption. • Site management responsibility for the office based in Newcastle-Under-Lyme. • Significant improvement in levels of employee engagement and development of hybrid working approach.

London, United Kingdom

• Interim Management for Customer Service Operation for Camelot plc, operators of the UK National Lottery

London, United Kingdom

Design, set up and running of digital operations team in the UK, including Customer Service, Fraud Operations, Payments, Sports Operations and Facilities functions. Achieved within extremely challenging timeframes supporting a high value, nationally recognised UK brand (‘The Sun’). • ‘From scratch’ set up of UK operations following JV agreement between Tabcorp and News UK in November 2015. • Delivery of multi-functional service operation that consistently meets and exceeds regulatory, customer satisfaction and brand expectations. • Developed Customer Service proposition that exceeded industry average Net Promoter Score within 12 months of live operations. • Adoption of an ‘Everything in Live’ service approach (predominantly via web chat), ensuring customer enquiries, KYC verification, fraud detection and payments can be managed and processed in real time. • Development of customer experience strategies initiated through customer and employee feedback (VOC). • Management of all UK site and facilities (based in ‘The Shard’). Included ownership of DR and BCP. • Management of organisational ‘reset’ in July 2017, reducing UK cost base through planned redundancy programme (vi Collective Consultation). • Establishment of an energetic, ‘can do’ operational culture, driving continuous improvement and using Lean Thinking process development techniques to streamline and improve operations.

Malta

Leadership of the Customer Operations team in Malta and Managing Director responsibility for the management of the Malta site, the relationship with the Regulator (LGA) and the Directorship of 9 Betfair Companies. • Re-organisation and transformation of an underperforming team of 130 Customer Service and Telephone Betting agents, delivered through performance management and empowerment. Now achieving exemplary C-Sat, First Time Resolution and Staff Satisfaction scores. • Led introduction of web chat service channel transforming customer contact from 0% to 80% of all live customer interactions within 18 months. • Establishment of a two site, virtual contact operation (front and back office), driving efficiencies and operational flexibility. • Creation of the Propensity to Contact model, creating a new way of viewing the Betfair customer and adopted by the business as a tool for developing investment business cases. • Led Betfair’s operational set up of Casino online gaming in New Jersey within 3 months of regulatory sign off. • Business owner of the full contact centre technology Refresh project (Genesys to Oracle Right Now). • Appointment to Managing Director, Betfair Malta, chairing of the Board and overseeing appointment of Non-Exec Director.

Stevenage, United Kingdom

Heading Customer Operations teams in the UK, including Helpdesk, Market Operations and Outbound Sales teams. • Organisational restructuring, involving management of circa 80 people through individual and collective consultation. • Led the project that saw the takeover of a rival Betting Operator’s customer base and migration into Betfair at very short notice.• Process improvement and work planning forecasting for Market Operation team.

Nationwide

Heading Customer Service Transformation project within a large Public Sector organisation bringing together all customer contact into a dedicated, multi-channel contact centre and driving savings of upward of £1.8million over 2 years.

Banbury

In charge of all business operations for the multi-channel customer support centre, servicing 26,000 SME customers. Built and led a team of senior managers and 200 staff with a £3 million operating budget. Also supervised back office porting and administrative teams. Reviewed and analysed organisational structure, controls, procedures and processes to meet operational and audit requirements.Key AchievementsMajor Product Launch management, CRM Implementation, Organisational restructure, Contact Strategy design, Contact deflection to Self Service; Service Management

Coordinated multi-channel customer service/sales support for 26,500 National Lottery retailers across the UK with a group of 160 employees and a £2 million operating budget. • Spearheaded a multi-site customer service strategy, based on a SAP module, to meet 22% higher customer demand due to the new Terminal Rollout.• Key contributor in the design of a new retail terminal interface to support retailer self-serve and reduce live customer interface; achieved a seamless final launch of these terminals.• Decreased retailer complaints by 50% and enhanced customer satisfaction by 22% with a new complaints system/ process.• Grew Scratchcard Telesales performance by 22% through a more proactive sales and service culture.• Achieved zero license breaches recorded in the sensitive run-up to Lottery Licence bid decision.• Instituted long-term training & development programmes into a multi-site contact centre environment that drove significant cultural change.• Completed a six-month project in 2006 that involved architecting and authoring a 10-year, multi-channel customer service strategy that was central to the company’s successful bid to acquire the 3rd license to operate in the UK National Lottery.

Oversaw a team of 250 staff and a £3.5 million budget in all customer support for 3.2 million National Lottery players that purchased tickets via Interactive channels and the National Lottery Line.• Received the Revolution Customer Service of the Year award in 2005 and the National Customer Service award for e-commerce service in 2006.• Decreased customer contact rates by 15% over 2 years, while the customer base grew from 0 to 3.5 million.• Seamlessly transitioned this function in-house from an outsourced provider, quickly expanding capacity and realising 10% reduction in operating costs.

Fully responsible for the development, daily performance and regulatory compliance for the Interactive Player client base, as well the National Lottery website’s Intelligent Help System.• Created a customer contact business process, CRM technology solution and a new team from scratch to support the launch of the fledgling online business in only 6 months.• Promoted to this position after playing a key role in the design and implementation of the Intelligent Help System.

Watford, United Kingdom

Built and led a group of 12 Team Leaders and a Training Manager in setting up the Customer Service Operation.

Watford, United Kingdom

Coordinated daily contact with a diverse consumer client base and effectively performed complex problem solving in a timely manner.