Gucci Marketing Head Changes Jobs for Fanatics Gaming and Betting

Selena Kalvaria, a long-time haute couture marketing boss at Gucci, an Italian luxury clothes maker, has joined Fanatics Betting & Gaming in an unlikely change of jobs first sniffed out and reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Kalvaria Threads the Needle and Switches to Sports Betting

The unexpected leap into this new domain will see Kalvaria abandon Gucci’s American division and swap it out for a job at one of the newest entrants in the sports betting scene.

Fanatics Betting and Gaming has been growing its footprint in the United States incrementally, and not least running into some trouble with its recruitment as an ex-DraftKings employee who joined the company is being sued by its former boss over what is allegedly revealing company secrets.

The legal tug-of-war has steered clear of involving Fanatics Betting and Gaming per se. Regardless of this poaching of executive talent, Fanatics still has the Sisyphean task of gaining a foothold and market share in the American iGaming and sports gambling landscape, a thriving but unflattering place for newcomers.

On the flipside, Fanatics commands an enviable war chest, and sports a valuation close to $31 billion, making it a juggernaut to reckon with in the industry.

Although Fanatics is going to hit growing pains, the company won’t be entirely free to channel its apparel sports businesses into building synergies with the sports betting brand, not least because such efforts have been harrumphed by regulators, most recently in Massachusetts.

So, where does Kalvaria come into all of this and is she cut for the position? Fanatics certainly hopes so as in order to gain further market share, the company would need a visionary marketing boss who is able to navigate the subtleties of gambling marketing precepts and challenge the duopoly currently held by FanDuel and DraftKings.

Capitalizing on Women’s Sports and Upsetting the Status Quo

Fanatics is not alone in trying to upset the status quo with ESPN Bet, another media-slash-betting origin story platform, assailing the mainstream gambling market. In the meantime, Kalvaria already has some ideas about how to move forward.

“There’s a huge intersection between female athletes and sports and fashion, and we have a huge commerce business,” she noted at a time when the WNBA has been pulling in a robust betting handle has been soaring and male pundits have been chiming in to analyze women’s sports.

If anything, Kalvaria is uniquely equipped to navigate this new field and capitalize on the cresting interest in the vertical.