(Topic ID: 327919)

Stern Leadership Changes

By CrazyLevi

1 year ago


Topic Heartbeat

Topic Stats

  • 247 posts
  • 103 Pinsiders participating
  • Latest reply 11 months ago by Bmad21
  • Topic is favorited by 16 Pinsiders

You

Linked Games

No games have been linked to this topic.

    Topic Gallery

    View topic image gallery

    do-you-even-know-how-you-dont-put-it-paper-20178654 (resized).png
    Screenshot_20221220-203939 (resized).png
    7BAE0E0A-BA05-44BB-B34B-52F8238F2AC3 (resized).jpeg
    A1A66F6D-5AD2-40C2-9D87-2035C6321431 (resized).jpeg
    Keep those scissor blades open, FFS! (resized).png
    Blue pen on the right, damnit!!! (resized).jpg
    BCCC8EBC-F0A4-4EED-B2CC-4CFF7B5A56F6 (resized).png
    34723583-6FBB-4FEF-9011-D6E7755D3693 (resized).jpeg

    You're currently viewing posts by Pinsider thefamilyarcade.
    Click here to go back to viewing the entire thread.

    #97 1 year ago
    Quoted from CrazyLevi:

    My takeaways:
    -Gary one step closer to full-on retirement
    -Stern revealing its sinister true intentions: to make money while continuing its growth
    -They've FINALLY retired their ridiculous "lifestyle brand" tagline; our long international nightmare is over.
    What do you guys think? How does them bringing on a South African dude who once hawked Jim Beam affect the pinball community? Are you mad at them for bragging about their success?
    Is this a building block for the future, or yet another "slap in the face" to the pinball community?
    Also, what in corporate bullshit tarnation is a "Six Sigma Black Belt?"
    ---
    Seth Davis appointed CEO; Nick Parfitt appointed CFO
    CHICAGO, IL – December 20, 2022 – Stern Pinball, Inc. (SPI) today announced two executive leadership appointments to support the company’s continued growth. In the past three years, SPI has achieved successive revenue records across the Pinball Machine, Accessory, and Merchandise businesses as well as a successful digital connectivity expansion with Insider Connected.
    Company Founder, Gary Stern, will step down as CEO but continue as Chairman of the Board. Dave Peterson will continue to serve as Vice Chairman of the Board. Gary and Dave will remain the controlling shareholders of the company and serve in executive roles on a project basis.
    Seth Davis, who joined the company as President in October 2021, will take on the additional role of Chief Executive Officer (CEO). A life-long gamer prior to joining Stern Pinball, Seth spent a combined twenty-one years at The Walt Disney Company and the General Electric Company. He served in a wide variety of functions and in intrapreneurial roles at increasingly senior levels. Seth led and managed both small and large teams spanning business, creative, and technical disciplines.
    Immediately prior to joining Stern Pinball, Seth served on the executive team responsible for the highly successful subscription-based streaming services Disney+ and ESPN+. Earlier in his career Seth served in Disney Corporate Financial Planning leading business transformation projects; as Head of Product Management for Connected Experiences within Disney Games and Consumer Products as part of Walt Disney Imagineering; as leader of Disney’s Digital Games Console and PC line of business; and as Director of Disney Games’ Strategy, Market Analytics, and Product Planning.
    Before Disney, Seth spent eight years at the General Electric Company. He served as Senior Manager – Finance at GE Capital responsible for Strategic Analysis and Marketing. He started his GE career in the Financial Management Program where he completed four national rotations through GE business units and earned his Six Sigma Black Belt Certification.
    Seth earned his MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania where he majored in Entrepreneurial Management. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Syracuse University with a double major in Accounting and Information Management and Technology.
    After 35 years of service, Michael O’Donnell will retire as SPI’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Michael will remain a large shareholder of the company and continue to serve as a Board member. He will also lead special projects and assist with the transition of the CFO role.
    Nick Parfitt will join the company as CFO. Nick, a native of South Africa, brings over 20 years of broad financial, accounting, strategic, and growth management experience to the company. Nick started his career with Fortune Brands at Jim Beam Inc., the world’s third largest producer and distributor of distilled beverages. Nick subsequently joined MillerKnoll, Inc., the NASDAQ-listed multi-billion dollar collective of dynamic brands designed and produced for commercial and luxury residential markets. Most recently, Nick served nVenia, LLC as the finance lead to implement a consolidation strategy for a newly formed business unit within the Duravant family of engineering businesses.
    Nick earned his MBA from The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University where he majored in Finance and Marketing. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Indiana University Bloomington with a double major in Finance and Operations Management.
    Shelley Sax-Eldridge, who is one of the longest serving employees at Stern Pinball, also announced her retirement after more than 36 years of service. Shelley started as an Administrative Assistant to Gary Stern and became the company’s Logistics Manager. Shelley communicated regularly with the company’s customers and distribution partners, facilitating the distribution of pinball games around the globe.

    Looks like an MBA and a Six Sigma Black Belt are table stakes to build and sell pinballs now. Boy Howdy (!) the bar has been raised! The rest of the industry must feel woefully under educated today. I know I do.

    These moves aren’t to build better pinball machines. These moves are to maximize profits to sell the company. I suppose they could be planning diversification of some kind to possibly go public someday, but these folks aren’t playing the long game.

    Let the cost cutting begin!

    #160 1 year ago
    Quoted from trueno92:

    nono
    i see the games being made differently mainly IN SOFTWARE.
    think about this:
    you coindrop and then the lcd screen brings up a menu like DAYTONA USA:
    PLAYER ONE: CHOOSE YOUR SKILL:
    1. easy
    2. medium
    3. pro
    THEN PRESS ACTION BUTTON (lockdown bar button)
    CHOOSE YOUR MISSION
    1. TIME BASED - (can you save the princess, defeat the bad guy, etc), (sorta like beat the clock, player gets 3 mins, if they win they get an extra ball or ticket redemption or spits out a plushie something)
    2. TRADITIONAL PINBALL - 5 BALL default (cuz most ppl just don't play)
    3. SUPER GAME (like Judge Dredd, just multiball frenzy for 2 mins, as a mini litz wizard mode)
    Then at the end of every game, the player is presented with a BUY IN offer, that can be similar to MysteryPacks in the online gaming world.
    WHat if you were baited with a Mystery Pack "power up". that gives you more story progression in the terms of "pop bumper hits 2x power up" or "super ramps 4x" power up, where now u only have to hit the ramps a lot less to accomplish that mini goal - or the pops now award something in half the hits? would it entice you to swipe again and continue your game?
    I think as far as Stern is concerned, a lot more of their changes can all be about manipulating the game of pinball, all in software. The end goal being to make pinball more approachable to those from the most popular current gaming experiences, so they can bleed that user-base dry. I'd think it would be online microtransaction style gaming and figuring out how to adopt it to an amusement style setting that can keep the player coming back for more.
    Then run a different approach for those on Insider connected where they organize and run all the weekly challenges or minimodes or even large payout tournaments. The payouts would be in credit for mystery packs that add code, or features, all in software.
    then execute it over 2 different strategies, Free to Play or Pay to Win.

    This sounds fucking horrible.

    1 month later
    #241 1 year ago
    Quoted from Bmad21:

    WMS was in a heap with pinball. Neal Nicastro saw the writing on the wall.
    Let me break it to you that we live in a world were shockingly yes run on money. Neal saw fit to let them go to give it a try with pinball 2000 while the pinball division was being funded by its gambling cousin, slots.
    on the other hand, had Williams not purchased Bally and let them die off then it would have saved their rear end but no, williams go too big and they failed in the pinball market.
    Jpop was the designer of starwars had he listened to gomez and lawor he wouldnt crashed the ship.
    Neal was a buisness man and sometimes you have to balence the books and order to keep WMS afloat he had to trim the tree and the most sense to do it where they were loosing money and that was pinball.
    Listen up williams fanboys and cultests williams stepped on their own rakes but they cant unglue thrmselves from their rear to see the choices that killed them.
    They got too big and it crashed them, the only thing that kept Bally alive was just a name on a pinball machine.
    Neal was the only one that kept the WMS name from sinking but this hobby were so drunk on williams pinball they cant see straight and the hobby crucified the guy that had to make that choice.
    At the end of the day the books and the acountants have the final say in all things pinball including today.
    Stern and williams produced unispiring fans layouts with themes on them and you guys lap it up like its the greatest thing in on the planets.
    The only other company Gottlieb did get creative but the community was cruel and cold as ice and killed them so they could have godesses. but now she's gone the hobby is left with Stern, no matter how much crap layouts stern throws onto a playfeild all they need to do is wave a theme and everyone just ask "how much" Stern could put a pop bumper with two flippers with a paid license and someone would sink thousands into that.

    Pinball 2000 was a success. Nicastro wanted to make bigger profits. And he was probably sick of pinball.

    If Gary Stern was running WMS at the time as a (mostly) labor of love they’d have stuck around. They weren’t losing money as I understand it.

    You're currently viewing posts by Pinsider thefamilyarcade.
    Click here to go back to viewing the entire thread.

    Reply

    Wanna join the discussion? Please sign in to reply to this topic.

    Hey there! Welcome to Pinside!

    Donate to Pinside

    Great to see you're enjoying Pinside! Did you know Pinside is able to run without any 3rd-party banners or ads, thanks to the support from our visitors? Please consider a donation to Pinside and get anext to your username to show for it! Or better yet, subscribe to Pinside+!


    This page was printed from https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/stern-leadership-changes?tu=thefamilyarcade and we tried optimising it for printing. Some page elements may have been deliberately hidden.

    Scan the QR code on the left to jump to the URL this document was printed from.