Melanie Gross Email & Phone Number

Las Vegas, Nv, Us

Boston, Ma, Us

Golden Hearts Games is an online Social Casino dedicated to bringing games, entertainment, and sweepstakes rewards to players across the U.S. • Member of the Senior Management Team, holding responsibility for the organization’s product vision, strategy, roadmap, and go-to-market planning & execution• Management oversight for the Product Management, Analytics, Design, and Retention & Monetization organizations• Subject matter expert on product, game content and marketing for board presentations, investor relations and third-party partnership opportunities• Primary business owner for third-party game integrations and associated merchandising, resulting in a 5x increase in content inventory within six months• Notable Q2 2024 achievements: led Coin Store package pricing tests attributable to a 44% QoQ increase in First Time Payers. Increased top line Coin Store purchases by 61% QoQ (+150% Q2 2024 vs. Q4 2023)

Las Vegas, Nevada, Us

Core faculty and guest lecturer on topics relevant to the regulated sportsbook and iGaming industries

Las Vegas, Nevada, Us

The Center’s Fellowship program encourages the development of research, educational content, and thought-leadership opportunities. In addition, Fellows serve in an advisory role for the Center, providing expertise regarding the development of the Center and services provided to clients.

London, London, Gb

Las Vegas, Nevada, Us

Oversaw business and P&L management for Caesars Entertainment’s regulated iGaming casino and sportsbook sites in multiple jurisdictions. Analyzed, reported, and presented executive KPIs, including results against budget and competitive analyses. Provided recommendations for performance improvements across business. Maintained responsibility for several departments, including marketing (acquisition, retention, VIP, promotions), product, payments, and service operations. • Launched the first online, real money casino sites for the company in 2013 in New Jersey, followed by the online sportsbook integration for New Jersey in 2018, Pennsylvania sportsbook and casino in 2020, and Indiana sportsbook in 2020.• iGaming subject matter expert for Caesars business development projects, including retail and online sportsbook vendor selection following the PASPA repeal in 2018, partnerships with Bleacher Report and ESPN in 2019, and the eventual $3.7B acquisition of William Hill PLC in 2021.• Served as primary business owner to finalize commercial terms for over a dozen RGS providers (providing 800+ casino games including Live Dealer), marketing tools and platform integrations. • Managed multi-year relationships with New Jersey Devils and Philadelphia 76ers, including strategic initiatives to cross-promote and activate fans to the Caesars Casino & Sportsbook apps, such as the opening of the Caesars Lounge in the Prudential Center (Newark, New Jersey), activation events, free-to-play games, and contests.• Prioritized game launches and optimized game merchandising with respect to product placement/ranking, promotional offerings, and email inclusion.• Partnered with the company's brick and mortar casino executive teams to drive incremental revenue growth and player acquisition via the Caesars Rewards database of 60M+ members, on-property signage and events, and dual advertising campaigns.

Las Vegas, Nevada, Us

San Francisco, California, Us

Served as product manager for company’s internal experiment framework for multivariate/multivariable testing and for features within company’s NGen platform, which provides app developers ability to instrument intelligent, event-driven ads to players across three development offices (BOS, ATL, SF). Oversaw event-based data capture and reporting with transition to lead product manager for project.• Participated in user research sessions with internal stakeholders as well as external publishers and game developers• Liaised with product marketing, sales, and developer relations to ensure complete understanding of product capabilities, external value propositions, and proper prioritization of client requests.

San Francisco, California, Us

• Managed product managers across multiple games. Set clear and measurable objectives, and deployed team resources appropriately to achieve business goals. Planned and executed defined product roadmap for Facebook and mobile games based on revenue and growth modeling. Maintained responsibility for full product lifecycle, including creation of feature specifications, multivariate testing and expected outcomes, cross-functional execution with engineering, UX, production and QA, feature launch, and post-feature analysis. Presented feature analyses, roadmap, and launch planning to product management, studio leadership, ad teams, and executive staff members.• Launched and created features for Indiana Jones Adventure World (16M+ monthly active users at peak), one of the top games of 2011 by Gamesutra and Kotaku• Feature creation, daily reporting, deep-dive analysis on FarmVille (13M DAU during my time on the Farm)

San Francisco, California, Us

Senior Product Manager, Adventure World: October 2011 - June 2012Product Manager, FarmVille/Adventure World: February 2011 - October 2011

San Francisco, California, Us

Bordeaux, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Fr

• Lead Product Manager for online real-money gaming (RMG) casino sites, available to players in non-US countries • Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) for two agile casino game and platform development teams. Releases included in-house created slot machines, an affiliate program platform and an integration with Cryptologic to incorporate branded IP Flash slot machines to our inventory• Drove the strategy, product roadmap and product backlog for Everest Casino and six secondary online casino divisions, localized in 12 languages• Responsible for both acquisition and retention strategies, including cross-promotional acquisition from the company’s Everest Poker product (3-year WSOP sponsor)• Defined and prioritized product features based on competitive landscape, UX recommendations, forecast metrics and gap analysis• Created business cases and high level requirements (EONs, RFPs) for new product offerings, product upgrades, additional game inventory and enhanced feature sets• Routinely analyzed game and customer performance. Made recommendations to Retention Marketing on bonus segmentation and offers• Communicated new product features, issues and planning to Customer Service, Affiliate Marketing and Search Engine Marketing• Delivered high level presentations to C-level executives, including three year roadmap plans, P&L and third party opportunities• Product expert for Marketing, Customer Service, Localization and Operations support• Primary stakeholder for website redesigns and updates

Bordeaux, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Fr

• Prepared and delivered the 2009 and 2010 casino vertical strategies to the Executive Management team, including overall acquisition and retention plans and the product roadmap.• Increased casino revenue by 39% and player acquisition by 16% in a twelve month period across twelve language markets.• Created and executed tactical promotions, requiring coordination between Development, Creative, Affiliate Marketing, Email Marketing, Search Engine Marketing and Customer Service.• Produced and presented seminars to various departments, including "Who is our Customer?" and "Player Behavior and Interests"• Formed and maintained strong internal cross-functional connections, allowing the effective and efficient presentation of business and product needs to Product Management and Software Development

Bordeaux, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Fr

• Managed projects assigned to Web Content Engineering, provided direction as needed, evaluated the work with respect to project goals, and coordinated the integration of the team's work with Development, Operations and Marketing. Also responsible for department hiring and performance reviews• Collaborated with Product Management and Marketing in order to design and develop international products and website marketing promotions• Created test plans from product specifications and drive team testing for quality assurance• In a team environment, product and project managed the development of an updated in-house Translation Management System (TMS). Outlined requirements, estimated the timeline for development, approval and implementation, and managed the interdepartmental discussions regarding system integrations and training

Bordeaux, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Fr

• Managed and maintained large quantities of content, in over a dozen languages, for websites and software applications• Transformed concepts into the functional elements for various software products• Developed graphical elements, HTML code, and client-side JavaScript on our gaming clients and backend tools, incorporating multi-lingual/localization attributes• Periodically conducted market research on gaming properties and competing gaming products to keep abreast of related technologies and popular tastes in various international markets

San Diego, Ca, Us

• Responsible for brand and online marketing strategy of the MLS Assistant product• Produced HTML and print marketing materials that were routinely sent to segmented groups of prospective buyers and existing clients• Designed and produced the corporate website, as well as site templates for the clients’ use• Point of contact for over 1,000 clients via phone, print and web communication• Arranged sales and marketing meetings for both potential and current clients • Developed, organized and regularly updated client databases for marketing and sales purposes