Breaking: Campos to step down as CEO of PokerStars
Official statement says former head of Dragonfish will leave Stars on 1 February after just 14 months in charge.
Gabi Campos, the first ever CEO of the world’s largest poker website, will step down from his position after just 14 months in charge, eGaming Review can confirm.
Following reports late last night that Campos’s position was in doubt, sources within PokerStars have confirmed to eGR that he will leave in two weeks time.
An official statement released to Pokernews earlier today, but not sent out on general release, said: “PokerStars announced today that Gabi Campos has decided to step down from his position as Chief Executive Officer, effective Feb. 1, 2012, to pursue other opportunities. The company thanks Gabi for his hard work and commitment and wishes him the best in all his future endeavors. A search for Gabi’s replacement is under way.”
As exclusively revealed at the time by eGR Campos joined Stars from 888’s B2B division Dragonfish on 19 July 2010 acting as a “non operational consultant” and officially began his role as PokerStars’ first ever CEO on 4 October 2010.
Stars founder Isai Scheinberg remained on board as chief technical officer, while his son Mark assumed the role of chairman. eGR has learned from two individual sources within the company that Isai, indicted on several charges including alleged money laundering alongside Stars’ head of payments Paul Tate and a number of other poker affiliated personnel from Full Tilt and Absolute Poker following the events of Black Friday, has taken a more hands on role in the last few months on projects some of his teams are working on.
In July Stars unveiled former Microsoft and Disney senior VP Eric Hollreiser as its new head of corporate communications, while a month later it appointed another Microsoft veteran, Alex Payne, as its new chief marketing officer. Since then, however a number of long-serving staff have left including European Poker Tour tournament director Thomas Kremser; John Duthie, who last month ended his contract as a Stars pro and as the CEO of the European Poker Tour which he created, while poker pros Greg Raymer and Joe Hachem have both split from Stars in the last year.