Soft2Bet Appoints James Hancock and Harry Heynes to Strengthen Its Senior B2B Commercial Team
Soft2Bet, a turnkey iGaming platform solutions provider, has added two senior names to its commercial leadership. The company has appointed James Hancock as Vice President of B2B Marketing and Harry Heynes as Business Development Director, moves it says are aimed at accelerating B2B growth and extending the reach of its technology across regulated markets. Both appointments join a commercial team that has been visibly expanding through the year, which is what makes them worth a closer look.
Why Soft2Bet’s B2B expansion matters now
Turnkey platform providers do not win operators on technology alone. They win on who is in the room, how partnerships are structured, and how clearly a platform’s value is communicated to the brands weighing it up. That places the commercial team at the centre of growth, not at its edges. Soft2Bet has been building this function steadily across 2026, and the release ties the latest arrivals directly to that effort under Chief Commercial Officer Andrew Cochrane. Published on 22 September 2026, the two hires land as the company continues to position itself as a provider of choice in regulated jurisdictions worldwide.
What the two Soft2Bet appointments actually involve
The remits are distinct and complementary. As Vice President of B2B Marketing, Hancock will work alongside Cochrane to sharpen Soft2Bet’s market positioning, drive its global brand strategy, and present the platform’s scalable architecture to a wider audience of potential partners. He brings more than a decade of industry marketing experience, with previous roles at Paddy Power, The Stars Group and GiG.
Heynes, as Business Development Director, takes on adoption and growth of the Soft2Bet iGaming Platform, with a focus on developing new partnerships in key regulated markets. He carries more than 12 years of commercial leadership across iGaming, sports betting and payments, including senior experience at SBTech, SIS and Inspired, and his stated priority is structuring high-value partnerships that deliver scalable, long-term ROI.
Hancock commented: “I’m very excited to be here, at a time when Soft2Bet’s strategic B2B priorities and technological capabilities present a significant opportunity for growth. I look forward to again working alongside Andrew and the wider business development team to elevate our B2B brand presence, leveraging the impressive technology, services and infrastructure driving impressive results for existing partners.”
What the hires signal about Soft2Bet’s commercial strategy
Read together, the appointments look less like two separate vacancies filled and more like a deliberate build. One phrase in Hancock’s own comment is worth noting: he speaks of “again” working with Cochrane, which points to some prior familiarity within the unit, a factor that tends to shorten the runway to results. Pairing a marketing lead focused on positioning with a business development lead focused on partnership structure suggests Soft2Bet wants both halves of the commercial equation moving in step, the story it tells operators and the deals it closes with them.
Heynes framed the operator’s side of that equation directly: “In today’s regulated landscape, operators need technology partners that can genuinely move the needle on commercial growth. Soft2Bet combines an award-winning platform with market-leading gamification, and I’m looking forward to building strategic partnerships that unlock sustainable ROI for operators expanding globally.”
The limits of what an appointment announcement can tell us
It is worth being clear about what this news does and does not confirm. Appointments signal intent; they do not, on their own, deliver market adoption or partnership wins. The release describes remits and ambitions rather than results, and the value of both hires will only be measurable once new operator partnerships and market entries follow. Experience at well-known former employers is a credential, not an outcome. The sensible read is to treat this as a strengthening of capability, and to watch what the enlarged team actually converts over the coming quarters.
What comes next for Soft2Bet in regulated B2B iGaming?
The direction of travel is clear enough. With a marketing lead and a business development lead now added to the commercial team under Cochrane, the near-term expectation is more concerted activity around operator partnerships and entries into regulated markets, the areas both roles are explicitly pointed at. The measure that matters will not be the announcement itself but the deals and market footprints that emerge from it. For operators comparing platform providers, the meaningful takeaway is that the commercial team standing behind the technology is becoming as much a part of Soft2Bet’s pitch as the platform itself.
Source: Soft2Bet
