MGM Resorts last week announced the appointment of highly respected leader in digital business and companywide transformation, Atif Rafiq, as president of commercial and growth, reporting directly to Chairman and CEO Jim Murren. Rafiq has extensive experience in rethinking and transforming global organizations, reshaping consumer behavior and delivering significant, measurable, new sources of profitability for companies.
With this new role, Rafiq will develop new customer experiences, business models and revenue streams, including launching digital businesses to further differentiate MGM Resorts. As the lead commercial officer, he will oversee current revenue streams including commercial, digital, sales and marketing, bringing them together in a unified strategy allowing for efficient, nimble and innovative growth. This is in line with the principles of MGM 2020, the company’s plan for transformation and revenue growth, with an emphasis on data-driven, digital and customer-centric innovations.
As the first chief digital officer in the Fortune 100, Rafiq led one of the largest digital transformations in the world at McDonald’s Corporation. In less than five years, his initiatives went from idea to global rollout becoming one of the main revenue growth drivers for the company. Rafiq joins MGM Resorts from Volvo Cars, where he led strategic initiatives to embrace business model change through digital subscriptions, developed direct-to-consumer relationships, introduced a wave of connectivity services for cars and created partnerships with tech giants.
A veteran of Silicon Valley with 17 years of experience leading large-scale digital businesses at top global technology companies including Amazon, Yahoo! and AOL, Rafiq will be a key leader as MGM Resorts embarks on its major digital transformation under MGM 2020.
MGM Resorts is in the midst of a significant transformation under MGM 2020. With the addition of Rafiq to the senior executive leadership team, he will set the digital strategy and drive change across the organization. His strategic insights and his strong execution experience and initiatives should help MGM Resorts realize significant incremental cash flow.
