Gary William Loveman is an American business executive and former academic. He is the current Chief Executive Officer and President of Caesars Entertainment Corporation since January 2003; President of Harrah's Entertainment, Inc. (renamed Caesars Entertainment in 2010) since April 2001; various executive positions at Harrah's Entertainment, Inc. from May 1998 to April 2001.[1][2]
Loveman graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Connecticut's Wesleyan University in 1982 and received his Ph.D. in economics from the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Before joining Harrah's as Chief Operating Officer in 1998, he spent two years at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, running regression analysis on the impact of the burgeoning budget deficit on interest rates and was a professor at the Harvard Business School.[3][4]
As CEO, Loveman has concentrated on attracting average gamblers to Caesars casinos with a direct mail marketing and customer loyalty program, Total Rewards, instead of targeting only high rollers or creating family friendly attractions. His strategy makes gaming, rather than hotels, performance venues or other associated ventures, responsible for the vast majority of Caesars revenues. Results have been mixed. Despite good media coverage, and a reputation for sophistication and technology savvy,[5][6] during Loveman's tenure, Caesars operating results, share price and valuation mostly have underperformed its peers.[3][7]
Under Loveman, Harrah's has grown into the world's largest gaming corporation. He has pursued several major acquisitions as CEO, including Harrah's 2005 purchase of Caesars Entertainment, the owners of Caesars Palace.[8] Most notably, in December 2006, Harrah's was acquired and taken private by private equity firms TPG and Apollo, in one of the then largest buyouts of the time. Unfortunately, the company has not performed well since then, causing its new owners to take significant write downs and renegotiate with lenders. In December 2010, Harrah's was compelled to withdraw the company's attempt at a new public offering because of its inability to attract sufficient new public market institutional investors.
Caesars operates from Las Vegas, Nevada, but Loveman commutes from suburban Boston, Massachusetts.[9]
He is also a partial owner of the Boston Breakers, a Womens Professional Soccer team.[10]