Simon Duffy New Partygaming Chairman


Duffy to chair board of merged companies
 
Party Gaming's third quarter results this week included information on the new non-executive chairman of the Party-BWin merged groups.
 
Simon Duffy (60), has held a number of executive and non-executive positions in a wide range of business sectors and companies, and will be appointed non-executive chairman of the enlarged group.  His appointment will take effect on completion of the merger that remains on-track to take place in the first quarter of 2011.
 
From 2007 until 2008 Duffy was executive chairman of Tradus plc, an online retailer in Central and Eastern Europe. Prior to Tradus, he was executive vice chairman of ntl:Telewest Inc. (now Virgin Media Group, having previously been president, chief executive officer and chief operating officer of ntl Inc., a NASDAQ-listed company that became the major component of VMG.
 
Prior to ntl Duffy was chief financial officer of Orange SA and before that he was CEO of Denmark-based wireless data company End2End AS. He joined End2End from Netherlands-based internet service provider WorldOnline International BV, where he was chief executive and deputy chairman. Previously he had spent eight years at EMI Group plc where he was group finance director and deputy chairman.
 
Previous non-executive directorships include, GWR Group plc, Thames Television plc, HMV Media Group plc, Gartmore plc, Imperial Tobacco Group plc, Berisford plc, Cantab Pharmaceuticals plc (Chairman), iMedia Holdings Limited (Chairman), Amteus plc, Tiscali S.p.A. and the Intellectual Property Institute.
 
Duffy sits on the advisory board of the British-American Project and on the corporate development board of the NSPCC, the children’s charity.  He holds an MA from Oxford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School where he was a Harkness Fellow.
 
Upon completion of the proposed merger, Rod Perry, current chairman of Party Gaming, will become deputy chairman and senior independent director of the enlarged group.
 
Commenting on Simon Duffy’s appointment Jim Ryan and Norbert Teufelberger, the proposed Co-CEOs of the enlarged group, said:
 
“We are delighted that Simon, with his wealth of business experience from a career spanning many different industries and companies, will become chairman when our transformational merger is complete. His achievements from working with consumer-facing businesses, especially those in the entertainment and online industries, will be an invaluable resource for us as we seek to exploit the significant opportunities that we expect to flow from the continued expansion of the online gaming industry.”
 
Simon Duffy said:
 
“I very much look forward to becoming chairman when PartyGaming and Bwin join forces. They are unquestionably two of the online gaming industry’s pioneers and great successes in their own right. Together, they are set to create a true global champion in the field of online gaming and eCommerce, a business sector that is clearly destined to expand.”