{"id":34384,"date":"2022-10-12T22:49:38","date_gmt":"2022-10-13T01:49:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=34384"},"modified":"2026-04-23T04:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T07:00:08","slug":"robert-cooke-to-start-as-ceo-of-the-star-on-october-17","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/robert-cooke-to-start-as-ceo-of-the-star-on-october-17","title":{"rendered":"Robert Cooke to start as CEO of The Star on October 17"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Current executive chairman Ben Heap will return to his non-executive role upon Cooke’s appointment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Australia.- The Star Entertainment Group <\/strong>has announced through a company filing that Robert Cooke <\/strong>will commence in his role as managing director and chief executive officer on Monday, October 17, 2022. Ben Heap<\/strong>, the current executive chairman, will return to a non-executive role. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cooke’s appointment was announced on June 29<\/a>, following an extensive search. His appointment has received regulatory approval in Queensland, with New South Wales still pending. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cooke is currently managing director of Tyro Payments<\/strong>, an Australian fintech providing merchant credit and EFTPOS services, which Cooke successfully led to IPO in 2019. He was previously managing director of Wotif.com from 2006 to 2013, where he oversaw several acquisitions and led the business to an ASX listing in 2006. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Queensland deems the Star unsuitable to hold a casino licence<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Queensland\u2019s review of The Star Entertainment Group<\/a> has found the casino operator to be unsuitable to continue holding a casino licence in the state. Robert Gotterson AO KC <\/strong>reached an open finding in his report but Queensland Attorney-General Shannon Fentiman says the operator is unfit to run its Queensland venues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of the findings are similar to those of Adam Bell SC\u2019s inquiry<\/a> in New South Wales. Gotterson says the casino operator encouraged people excluded on the direction of police commissioners in New South Wales and Victoria to gamble at its Queensland casinos<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report stated: \u201cThe two Star casinos presently carrying on business in Queensland (Star Gold Coast and Treasury Brisbane) have been operated in a way that is inconsistent with the achievement of the objectives of the Casino Control Act 1982 (Qld).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report adds: \u201cThis shows a poor corporate culture, a failure of those responsible for the AML\/CTF Program to intervene<\/strong>, and a senior management that failed to have in place mechanisms to restrain the actions of a marketing team whose focus was on drawing in business.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Star Entertainment Group<\/strong> has issued a statement saying it is considering the report and will continue to cooperate with the Office of Liquor and Gaming Regulation<\/strong> (OLGR)<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Current executive chairman Ben Heap will return to his non-executive role upon Cooke’s appointment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":26456,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"The Star Entertainment Group has announced Robert Cooke's commencement as Managing Director and CEO, effective October 17, 2022, with regulatory approval secured in Queensland but pending in New South Wales. Concurrently, a Queensland review has deemed The Star unsuitable to hold a casino licence due to significant corporate culture, AML\/CTF program, and senior management failures, mirroring findings in NSW.","focusai_entities":"The Star Entertainment Group, Robert Cooke, Ben Heap, Tyro Payments, Wotif.com, Robert Gotterson AO KC, Shannon Fentiman, Adam Bell SC, Office of Liquor and Gaming Regulation (OLGR)","focusai_location":"Australia, Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (1.0), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (0.9), marketing_crm (0.7), payments_fraud_aml (1.0), investor_analyst (1.0), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Star's Remediation Plan?","query":"What specific remediation actions will The Star Entertainment Group implement to address the AML\/CTF and corporate culture deficiencies identified by the Queensland review, and what is the timeline for these initiatives?"},{"label":"NSW Regulatory Impact?","query":"How will the pending New South Wales regulatory approval for Robert Cooke's appointment be influenced by the Queensland findings, and what are the potential implications for The Star's NSW casino license?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16336,157],"tags":[23871],"class_list":["post-34384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australasia-news","category-business-news","tag-the-star-entertainment-group"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34384"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34429,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34384\/revisions\/34429"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}