Gary Loveman joined Caesars Entertainment Corporation as Chief Operating Officer in 1998, after serving as an associate professor at the Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration. He drew on his background in service-management to develop the gaming industry’s most successful loyalty and analytics program, Total Rewards, which boasts more than 40 million members. After being named CEO in January 2003, Loveman presided over a period of growth that included the 2004 purchase of Horseshoe Gaming and the World Series of Poker and the 2005 acquisition of Caesars Entertainment, Inc. In January 2008, Caesars went private in a $30.7 billion transaction led by private equity firms TPG Capital and Apollo. In the wake of the recent financial crisis, Loveman has led Caesars’ successful debt reduction and liquidity improvement strategies, while also adding Planet Hollywood and social games leader Playtika to the Company’s portfolio. Loveman was recognized as the gaming and lodging industry’s best CEO by Institutional Investor magazine for four consecutive years. After 12 years with the company, Loveman retired from his role as Chief Executive Officer and President in July 2015. Loveman is the past chairman of the American Gaming Association. He is a member of the President’s Export Council and serves as Chairman of the Business Roundtable’s Committee on Health and Retirement. He also serves as a director of Coach, Inc. and FedEx Corporation and sits on the Board of Trustees at Children’s Hospital Boston and the Visiting Committee of the Department of Economics at M.I.T. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from M.I.T., where he was an Alfred Sloan Doctoral Dissertation Fellow, and a B.A. in economics from Wesleyan University.