Fanatics Betting and Gaming Appointed Andrea Ellis as CFO

US sports merchandise and e-commerce brand Fanatics continued with its preparations to enter the sports betting and iGaming industry with the appointment of Andrea Ellis as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of its betting and gaming division.

Bringing Financial Expertise On Board

The appointment of Ellis as CFO of Fanatics Betting and Gaming comes less than a week after Fanatics chief executive officer Michael Rubin announced expectations that the new division would launch operations in January.

New addition Ellis brings to the Fanatics team expertise in technology, products and operations, gained at her previous roles as CFO at the largest electric scooter and bike share company Lime, where she spent the past two years, as well as with Restaurant Brands, owner of the Burger King brand.

In her new role, Ellis will be tasked with leading strategic and operational efforts in scaling the new division and will report to Fanatics Betting and Gaming chief executive officer Matt King.

“We are thrilled to welcome Andrea to our team as we inch closer to formally launching a new, dynamic online sports-betting and gaming product for fans,” King, who previously worked as CEO at FanDuel said.

The appointment of Ellis is the latest in a series of high-profile additions made by Fanatics Betting and Gaming over the past months and ahead of the official launch of its betting and gaming business, including Jigish Mehta and Andrew Kleiman.

Hiring ahead of Official Launch

In July, Fanatics appointed the former director of engineering at Rakuten Rewards Mehta as Director of Engineering at Fanatics Betting and Gaming to take advantage of his experience in leading quality engineering teams.

In August, Fanatics added former senior director of operations and senior director of partner relations at FanDuel Kleiman as Vice President of Retail Operations at its newly betting and gaming business to leverage his multi-faceted retail industry experience spanning over three decades.

The launch of Fanatics Betting and Gaming in January will coincide with the playoffs in the NFL and Rubin is banking on the company’s success in e-commerce to translate into sports betting despite entering a crowded market, expecting to be up and running in every US jurisdiction that has legalized sports betting by the start of next football season in the autumn.

Valued at more than $27 billion, Fanatics, with its formidable customer base of 94 million and the financial backing of Fidelity, BlackRock and Michael Dell, may turn into a significant competitor to the big boys in sports betting in the future.