Australian operator Star Entertainment announced on April 3 that the CEO of its Star Sydney property, Scott Wharton, will be leaving the company as of April 28 to pursue another venture with Smartgroup, a salary packaging and novated lease firm.
Wharton, who also served as the company’s head of corporate transformation, was not even one year into his tenure, having assumed the role in July 2022.
The longtime Commonwealth Bank of Australia executive was appointed shortly after Star was deemed unsuitable to hold its casino license for Star Sydney, and was believed to be a driving force behind the company’s return to prominence and profitability. Now that Wharton has departed, Star Sydney has about one year remaining in the two-year grace period given to it by state regulators.
Ben Heap, interim chairman for Star, said when Wharton was appointed that his “leadership, capabilities, expertise in delivering significant transformation working closely with regulators, together with his commercial skills and experience managing complex businesses, made him the ideal; candidate to take on this key position within the organization.”
After Wharton’s departure was announced, Star Managing Director and CEO Robbie Cooke announced that his duties are to be split into two separate roles moving forward—his duties as Chief Transformation Officer will be taken over by Nicola Burke, and a new CEO for Star Sydney will be chosen sometime in the near future.
In a statement, Cooke thanked the outgoing CEO “for his valuable contribution, particularly in respect of our remediation actions.”
“We are committed to winning back trust and confidence from the community and the work Scott has led since his appointment last July has laid incredibly important foundations,” he added. “We still have a lot of work ahead, but the Board and the management team have an unwavering focus on proving our suitability to hold casino licenses in NSW and Queensland.”
The company recently completed a US$532 million fundraising campaign after sustaining heavy losses over the last 18 months due in part to record fines from regulators in Queensland and New South Wales.
