Patti S. Hart IGT Chief Executive Officer Patti S. Hart has served as Chief Executive Officer of IGT since April 2009 and has served on the company s board of directors since June 2006. Prior to joining IGT, Ms. Hart served as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Pinnacle Systems Inc. from 2004-2005, Excite@Home Inc. from 2001-2002, and of Telocity Inc. from 1999-2001. Ms. Hart also held various management positions at the Sprint Corporation, including President and COO of Sprint s Long Distance Division. Ms. Hart has served on numerous public company boards, including Yahoo! Inc. and Korn/Ferry International Inc., and currently serves on the board of the American Gaming Association. Ms. Hart earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration with an emphasis in Marketing and Economics from Illinois State University.
Eric P. Tom IGT Executive Vice President Global Sales Eric P. Tom has served as Executive Vice President Global Sales of IGT since June 2012, where he is responsible for IGT s global customer base and operator marketing. Mr. Tom previously served as Executive Vice President North America Sales and Global Marketing of IGT from 2009-2010 and as Chief Operating Officer of IGT from 2010-2011. Prior to joining IGT, Mr. Tom held various management positions at Force10 Networks, Broadband Interactive TV, Qwest Communications, and Sprint. Mr. Tom earned a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Hawaii and an MBA from the University of California Berkeley with an emphasis in corporate finance.
John Vandemore IGT Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer John Vandemore has served as Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of IGT since February 2012, where he is responsible for overseeing IGT s internal and external reporting, leading IGT s global financial planning and analysis, strategy development and managing all worldwide finance operations, including investor relations, tax, accounting, treasury, credit, and audit. Prior to joining IGT, Mr. Vandemore held various management positions at The Walt Disney Company, AlixPartners, Goldman Sachs, and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Mr. Vandemore earned a Bachelor of Business Administration with a major in Accountancy from the University of Notre Dame and an MBA from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern.
Darrell Rodriguez IGT Chief Creative Officer Darrell Rodriguez has served as IGT s Chief Creative Officer since 2012. He directs IGT's worldwide creative agenda inclusive of IGT's third party game developers, publishers' platform, and content creation strategy. Prior to his current position, Mr. Rodriguez served as IGT's Senior Vice President Global Game Studios from 2010 till 2012. Before joining IGT, he was president of LucasArts (the interactive game division of Lucasfilm), and Chief Operating Officer at Electronic Arts Los Angeles. Rodriguez has also held positions in product development and production at EarthLink, Walt Disney Imagineering and the Walt Disney Internet Group. Mr. Rodriguez was born and raised in the Bay Area, and earned his MBA at the University of California, Berkeley.
Knute Knudson IGT Vice President of Global Business Development Knute Knudson has served as IGT s Vice President of Global Business Development since 2011. Mr. Knudson focuses on business opportunities throughout IGT s International Regions and IGT s business footprint in Indian Country. Mr. Knudson previously served in several VP positions within Sodak Gaming and IGT including: VP Product and Market Development, VP Strategic Planning, VP Administration and VP Government Relations. Prior to his career in the gaming industry, Knute worked in Washington DC as a Presidential Appointee and for three municipal governments. He served also terms as a South Dakota State Legislator. Mr. Knudson completed his undergraduate degree at Black Hills State College and has Master s Degree from the University of Oklahoma and Harvard University s Kennedy School.
Robert C. Melendres IGT Executive Vice President Interactive Group Robert C. Melendres has served as Executive Vice President Interactive Group of IGT since January 2012 and previously served as Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary from December 2009 until May 2012. He is responsible for the P&L of the Interactive business as well as for setting the direction and accelerating the adoption of IGT interactive gaming across online, mobile and social platforms. Prior to joining IGT, Mr. Melendres held various management positions at Spansion Inc., a flash memory semiconductor company, including Executive Vice President of Corporate Development, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary. Prior to that, Mr. Melendres also served in various management positions at AMD including Corporate Vice President. Prior to joining AMD, he served as CEO, President and General Counsel of WebGain, Inc., an enterprise JAVA Software Company. He also served as Director of Worldwide Contracts and Business Practices for IBM and IBM Legal Counsel. Mr. Melendres earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from the University of California Los Angeles and a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School.
Susan Cartwright IGT Vice President of Corporate Communications Susan Cartwright has served as Vice President of Corporate Communications of IGT since November 2012, where she is responsible for the company s internal and external corporate communication strategy and execution. Susan s strategic skills have been honed at top notch Communication Agencies such as Omnicon s Element 79, Energy BBDO and DDB and Leo Burnett. Additionally, her experience leading blue chip Clients, such as Johns Hopkins University, Gerber, Quaker Snacks, Zicam, Aleve, Stolichnaya, Beefeater, Kahlua and BEHR paint, empowers her to confidently lead IGT s new brand positioning, brand architecture, identity and new, differentiating campaign work. Ms. Cartwright earned a Bachelor of Speech in Communication Studies from Northwestern University.
Joe A. Sigrist IGT Vice President Product Management Joe A. Sigrist joined IGT in 2012 as Vice President, Product Management, responsible for all product management functions related to IGT s land-based gaming products. These products include all games, cabinets and systems products marketed worldwide. Sigrist holds an MBA from the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University, and a Bachelor of Science, also from Santa Clara University. Prior to joining IGT, from 2010 to 2011 Sigrist was Vice President and General Manager of Endpoints and Video Solutions at Avaya. Prior to that, from 2006-2010, he was Senior Vice President and General Manager at Polycom where he oversaw Polycom s largest business unit that reported revenues of over $650 million. Sigrist also was President and CEO of Hammerhead Systems from 2003-2005, where he also served on the board of directors. Sigrist has more than 14 years of experience in executive level management, with related positions in large corporations operating throughout the globe.
Charles R. Harper Vice President of Business Development for DoubleDown Interactive, a division of IGT Charles R. Harper has served as Vice President of Business Development for DoubleDown Interactive, a division of IGT, Inc. (IGT) since March 2011, where he is responsible for the IGT s DoubleDown Casino Partner Program as well as strategic distribution partnerships with top tier companies, business strategy for globalization, and mobile distribution. Prior to joining IGT, Mr. Harper served as General Manager of Business Development for GameHouse, the Casual Games Division of RealNetworks, Inc. (RNWK) from 2008-2010. Mr. Harper also served as Vice President of Business Development and Screenlife, LLC from 2005-2008, and Senior Director at WildTangent from 2001-2005. Mr. Harper started his career in gaming nearly 14 years ago at RealNetworks as a founder and head of Business Development for the then new RealArcade group.
Marcus Yoder IGT Executive Director of Sales and Business Development for IGT Interactive Marcus Yoder has served as Executive Director, Business Development for IGT Interactive since July 2010. Mr. Yoder came to IGT Interactive after running a consulting practice focused on the use of social media to improve product development. Prior, Mr. Yoder was cofounder and the Chief Operating Officer of Veeker Corporation. After completing his MBA at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Mr. Yoder was a Principal Consultant at PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Marcus also received an Executive MBA from the Fundacao Getulio Vargas, in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Adrian Marcu IGT Vice President of Global Technical Architecture Adrian Marcu is the Vice President of Global Technical Architecture at IGT. He has more than 20 years experience in gaming and engineering and currently he also serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Gaming Standards Association. Since joining IGT, Adrian was directly involved in leadership roles in numerous development projects, including server-based gaming, progressives, ticketing and lottery systems, which required him to author or contribute to a variety of communications protocols and system architectures. In the current role Adrian oversees the Technical Architecture for IGT products both land and online. He was also involved with both embedded and systems development efforts in his homeland of Romania, where he earned a master's degree from the Polytechnic Institute of Bucharest.