Gaming technology company Lottery.com has appointed Mark Gustavson as its new Chief Executive and principal executive officer. He officially assumed responsibilities on February 1 and will also serve as the business’ principal financial and accounting officer until a replacement is found.
Gustavson replaces Sohail Quraeshi, who was appointed CEO full-time in November after being brought in on an interim basis in October. Gustavson, age 54, has 17 years of business development, transactional, alliance management, finance, operational, company formation, and IP experience with emerging businesses, notes Lottery.com.
During his career, he acquired extensive experience in the integration of business disciplines, with an emphasis on turnaround transactions. The new CEO joins Lottery.com having last year co-founded Zenios Technologies Corporation, the company behind the Zenios Search augmented social search engine.
Before this, he spent eight years as lead consultant at Wookey Technologies Corporation, while he also had spells as Chief Financial Officer at Tri Capital Energy Corporation and as acquisition integration consultant for Play Gig-It Games. Gustavson’s other roles included co-founder and CFO of MedicuRx Corporation and vice-president for the private banking division and HSBC.
His appointment is the latest change at the senior management level at Lottery.com, with the business last month having also confirmed the resignation of Edward Moffly as interim CFO. And in December, Amer Rustom also stepped down as a director of the business despite only being appointed as an outside director in October.
The announcements follow a turbulent year at Lottery.com. Issues began in July when its former President and CFO resigned over instances of non-compliance with state and federal laws. The business also found its cash holdings were overstated by $30 million and admitted it was not able to pay employee wages.
In an effort to improve its situation, Lottery.com attempted to secure funding from Woodford Eurasia, a subsidiary of United International Holdings Netherlands BV. However, the investor demanded four of the five remaining members of Lottery.com’s board resign as part of the terms of the loan.
This led to two board members quitting in protest after claiming the company deliberately “thwarted” attempts to look into “red flags” raised regarding the new investor.
In November, Richard Kivel stepped down as chairman, saying it had become “impossible” to perform as an independent director as his efforts to improve the business situation had been “aggressively obstructed.” Days later, Lottery.com confirmed Matthew McGahan as chairman and announced Quraeshi as CEO full-time.
In December, Lottery.com was issued a warning by Nasdaq because of the late filing of its third-quarter results. Lottery.com was required to file its quarterly statement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) via a Form 10-Q but said it has been unable to do so as it has not yet completed an evaluation of an ongoing review into its accounting controls. The operator gave the same reason for not filing its second quarter results on time earlier in the year.
Original article: https://www.yogonet.com/international/news/2023/02/15/66119-lotterycom-appoints-mark-gustavson-as-chief-executive-and-principal-executive-officer
