Five Women. Five Paths. One Industry Being Reshaped – GGB Magazine’s 10th Annual Women of Gaming Recognition
GGB Magazine has published the 10th edition of its annual Outstanding Women in Gaming feature, and the 2025 group is worth reading less as a list of names and more as a map of where senior influence in the industry now sits. The five profiled leaders work in game development, regulation, product testing, casino operations and player health. Taken together, they show how far the centre of gravity in gaming has moved toward technology, data and digital operations.
The feature marks a decade of the recognition. What makes this year’s cohort notable is not the milestone but the spread: no two of these leaders do the same job, yet most of their remits point in the same direction.
How Jamie Knight Built IGT’s Viva Game Studio
Jamie Knight is senior vice president of game studios-US at IGT, a role built on more than two decades in slot development. She graduated from Illinois State University in 1998 with a degree in mathematics and computer science, but did not start out in gaming. Out of school she joined a California restaurant group and took over its marketing team, work she credits for teaching her how to run an art team and read what draws players.
The industry called in 2005, when Austrian manufacturer Atronic offered her a job as a mathematician. From there she built a long run of hit games at Bally, Scientific Games and Light & Wonder, where she was senior director of game design when IGT recruited her to create a new studio in Las Vegas. That studio, Viva, saw its debut title, King Khufu, reach the top two positions on industry game performance charts.
Knight has since taken on all US studios, revamping IGT’s premium studio in Reno and restructuring large teams into “pods” of 15 to 20 people, each led by a designer. Her approach centres on using designers to their specific strengths rather than treating everyone as a generalist. On how she ended up in charge, she is direct:
“My goal was never to really set out to be a leader; it was to make the best games.”
Sarah Gardner Steadies The UK Gambling Commission Through A Leadership Reshuffle
Sarah Gardner is interim CEO of the UK Gambling Commission, where she has spent 17 years and, by her own account, held most of the senior jobs. She was closely involved in the 2014 shift to point-of-consumption regulation, which taxed operators based on where their customers played rather than where the operator was based.
Her interim appointment comes during real turnover at the top. Both long-serving CEO Andrew Rhodes and policy director Tim Miller announced exits within recent months, and Sarah Fox is joining on secondment from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to lead the commission’s policy, research and statistics functions. Gardner is candid that regulation rarely satisfies anyone fully, describing it as work where opposing sides pull in different directions at once.
“You can never please all the people.”
The section of the government’s white paper covering financial risk assessments remains contested, with parts of the industry, politicians and horse racing advocates opposed. Gardner defends the measure as a more targeted way to identify consumers who need support. That debate is ongoing and is reported here as an existing public disagreement, not a settled outcome.
Sangeeta Reddy Leads A New Innovation Division At Gaming Laboratories International
Sangeeta Reddy is vice president of innovation at Gaming Laboratories International, a role she both conceived and built. She spent six years at IGT as a product assurance engineer, then took engineering leadership roles outside gaming at US Airways and General Motors, before returning to the sector at GLI in 2020. Within a year she was named VP of engineering, and in January 2025 she stepped up to lead a new Innovation Division.
The division’s brief is to keep GLI’s clients ahead of fast-moving technology, and much of Reddy’s focus has been on artificial intelligence and on modernising client-facing tools such as GLIAccess, the single digital gateway regulators, suppliers and operators use to access real-time information, certifications and project status. She has spent years studying AI formally to stay useful to clients as regulation around it takes shape.
“Technology is my passion, and growth in technology always excites me.”
How Kristina Griffus Runs iGaming And Sports Betting At Soaring Eagle Casino
Kristina “C.C.” Griffus is director of iGaming and sports betting operations at Soaring Eagle Casino & Resort, and a member of the Saginaw Chippewa Indian tribe. She holds a business management degree from Saginaw Valley State University and a marketing MBA from Central Michigan University, and came up through tribal leadership intern programmes, joining Soaring Eagle in 2009.
When Michigan legalised online casino and sports betting in 2019, Griffus helped build a strategy that rewarded digital and brick-and-mortar players at once, which she says lifted deposits and coin-in. She was appointed director in 2022. In July, Soaring Eagle Gaming announced the multi-year renewal of its partnership with the Detroit Lions, a deal she frames around a core demographic that overlaps heavily with the NFL fanbase. On technology and jobs, her line is blunt:
“people who refuse to use new technology will inevitably be replaced by people who do.”
Marie-Noëlle Savoie Drives Player Health At The British Columbia Lottery Corporation
Marie-Noëlle Savoie is interim chief social purpose officer and VP of marketing at the British Columbia Lottery Corporation, where she has worked since June 2020. Her portfolio is unusually broad, covering player health, legal services, compliance, anti-money laundering, privacy, investigations, data governance, security and marketing.
Savoie moved into gambling from the securities sector during the pandemic, describing the switch as a shift to something “way more fun,” and quickly built a cross-sector coalition against illegal gambling in British Columbia. She continues to work on BCLC’s GameSense Advisor programme, which provides education, support and referral services to players across the province’s retail outlets, casinos and community gaming centres.
What Does The Talent Shift Signal For The Regulated Gaming Market?
The through-line across these five careers is where the work now lives. Game development, regulation, testing, casino operations and player health look like separate worlds, yet four of the five remits are anchored in AI, data governance and digital operations. For suppliers and operators, that is the practical read: the roles gaining seniority are the ones closest to technology and data, and the talent competition is likely to concentrate there. A decade into GGB’s recognition, the more telling story is not who is on the list but what their jobs have in common.
Source: GGB Magazine
