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Join NABR in partnership with Corp! Magazine for our CEO & Executive Thought Leadership Series, where Jennifer Kluge sits down with C-Suite Leaders to get their insight and expertise.
NABR is a service organization igniting greatness in companies and their people.
00;00;00;03 - 00;00;37;15
Jennifer
Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of CEO and Executive Thought Leadership. I am your host, Jennifer Klug, and today we have a very special guest, David Lopez. He is the CEO and President of American Gaming Systems, also known as AGS, a Las Vegas based gaming technology company that develops products for casinos and online gaming platforms. With a longtime background in the gaming industry, David joins AGS as their CEO in 2014 and was brought in to lead a turnaround and expansion effort.
00;00;37;15 - 00;00;55;21
Jennifer
And boy, have you done that, David. Under his leadership, they have expanded greatly through acquisitions and new product launches. And you're also known for emphasizing company culture and building a strong management team. Welcome to the show, David.
00;00;55;27 - 00;01;02;21
David
Thank you Jennifer. Sounds like I don't deserve all that credit. But yeah, thank you for having me today. Appreciate it.
00;01;02;22 - 00;01;32;07
Jennifer
Yeah. Well, I'm not surprised that you're humble, but, you know, you've had so much in the last ten years since you've taken the realm. You've you've had some acquisitions, Colossal Gaming, kettle Jack, Rocket Play. You had an IPO in 2018. In 2025, Bright Star Capital Partners got involved in your private again. Well, you've you've had both experiences of acquiring and getting backing.
00;01;32;08 - 00;01;36;13
Jennifer
Walk us through that process and what some lessons you've learned from it.
00;01;36;15 - 00;02;05;03
David
You tired me out mentioning all that stuff. Yeah. So I joined I think. Yeah, 2014 sounds right. I can barely remember. But when I joined in 2014, very small company, I think we were around 24 to 27 million in EBITDA. We're on our way to, you know, the 200 range right now. You know, from the beginning, when we were bought by private equity, the plan was to consolidate smaller products and companies in the industry.
00;02;05;08 - 00;02;21;26
David
We did that. You know, it's not easy, as you were mentioning, all the things. It's it's a lot of work. And, you know, you got to have people on the team that are pretty gritty that want to, you know, get their hands dirty and dive in and try to figure out these companies are going to plug in together.
00;02;21;26 - 00;02;43;06
David
Products are a little easier. So we acquire products, we call them tuck ends, and we can just talk them in and move very quickly. And that's maybe like a three month process, full integrations of a new company which also require gaming approval, which as you can see with Bright Star, they actually they actually acquired us sign requires in 2024.
00;02;43;07 - 00;03;04;10
David
It was 12 to 13 months later the acquisition actually closes due to gaming regulatory sort of timing where we have to be approved. So there's so many things that take place to make these things happen. At the end of the day, how do you get a lot of it done? You get a lot of it done with, like I said, really smart, hardworking, gritty people that want to make these things happen.
00;03;04;11 - 00;03;29;14
David
They're exciting things, but they're also there's a lot of pain that you go through and and making these things happen. And then IPO, that is probably the easiest thing you do on this list. Believe it or not, you do some homework up front. You know, obviously your company has got to be ready to IPO it probably from the time you hit the button say we're going to go IPO 4 to 6 weeks.
00;03;29;17 - 00;03;49;11
David
Oh wow. Oh yeah. It's 4 to 6 week process. It's very fast. It's like the lightning round. It just goes so fast. And it's one of those things that you just have to you better be healthy and you better have your energy. I had some bad luck and got sick in the middle of it. But yeah, you get it done and it's exciting and it's cool.
00;03;49;11 - 00;04;03;00
David
And there's a huge letdown the final day when you IPO because you're like, well that's it, you know. But it's exciting. It's exciting leading up to it. It's exciting for employees. And it's obviously it was exciting for private equity ownership.
00;04;03;03 - 00;04;31;02
Jennifer
That's great. That's great. You know there's so many levels of dynamics there. Usually when someone is in or organizations in really rapid growth through acquisition and product launching, they're less concerned about culture and people. You're the opposite of that kind of walk us through what your mindset was about your people during this process. You mentioned you have a gritty team, but how did you take care of them?
00;04;31;04 - 00;04;57;23
David
So, I mean, I'd like to say, what did we do and how did we we look at it because I'm just like one person and I can't do that alone, obviously. And it's it's literally impossible. So first, the only thing that I did is we hire executives. And, you know, you know, when I arrived, we keep and we hire executives that have fit a profile of, you know, they want to they want to work together as a team.
00;04;57;23 - 00;05;25;00
David
There's no there's no political red tape that slows down every decision that you make. When when politics get involved, self-interest are involved with politics. So if you can avoid political people in general who aren't just trying to, you know, climb the ladder and say, oh, I want this job, I've always said myself like, hey, do your job, meaning to myself, to myself, do your job, David.
00;05;25;00 - 00;05;46;20
David
And over time, good things will happen. So focus on what you do today, because if you're focusing on the next thing, you're probably going to stink it up on your current job, you know? And so we want people like that that are just focused on what they're doing. They want to build good teams and like I say, like open door policy and stuff because I don't even have a door.
00;05;46;23 - 00;06;06;29
David
I have a cubicle. So like, we have an open policy on everything. My phone number, all executive phone numbers are published on, on, you know, teams like we're probably on here today. So it's all published. Anybody can talk to us. Anybody can mention something that's going on. So you got to have a culture where there's sort of no regrets for how we behave.
00;06;06;29 - 00;06;17;22
David
And we're we're treating each other well, and we do that and we treat customers in the same way. So I think that as you want to get these things done, that's the only way to make it happen. You know?
00;06;17;29 - 00;06;34;25
Jennifer
Yeah, you make it sound so simple. Walk us through the decision making tree of, okay, this, this we want to acquire or yes, we want to go IPO or. Yeah, it's time to get private equity to back us. Walk us through that decision making.
00;06;34;27 - 00;06;51;18
David
The last one is the easy one. We have nothing to do with that. They approach you and they say we're putting in an offer letter. It literally is the way that it works. They sit down with you, then you talk to your board and and you give them a heads up that a letter is coming. Sometimes you don't know if that letter is really coming or not.
00;06;51;22 - 00;07;15;16
David
Brightstar. There are people of their word. Hey, you're going to get a letter on this date, right? And it was right around Christmas and they said, we'll send it two days. I came two days after Christmas. And so they were sort of very much people of their word. So that's the easy one. IPO is really just saying, hey, where are we at from an EBITDA point of view as a company, what's our growth trajectory from here?
00;07;15;16 - 00;07;34;02
David
And, you know, how do we really view the company over the next few years? You've got to really take all those things into account. When that time is right. You get out there in your IPO, you start with a testing the waters event where you go talk to people on Wall Street. Back then, we used to get on planes and fly around all over the place.
00;07;34;02 - 00;07;56;21
David
It is really not the case anymore. We do this right? I mean, so if if we ever IPO again, I'm looking forward to standing or sitting in front of a computer and doing it. But those are really the criteria to IPO. And and as far as like acquisitions go, we got to just know that the products of it or the company, if its products are easy, we know it fits within our company.
00;07;56;21 - 00;08;31;21
David
We know what toxin easily. Companies are much more difficult because you're not just acquiring products, you're acquiring people and you're acquiring a culture. So when when we acquired Cadillac Jack, the two top lead executives, Mauro Franek and Sigmund Lee, were the people that we interfaced with the most, and we had to get a feel for the culture of those two people and what they sort of establish, both very smart people, both people that cared very much about their employees and cared very much about their craft.
00;08;31;22 - 00;08;52;07
David
Those are the things that we want to see, right? We want to see the things like people, you know, being motivated and excited every morning. They wake up to do what they're doing. And so that has to fit. And those cultures plugged in well together. Plus, like they had, they had great product development. We didn't. Right. We had great infrastructure and service and operations.
00;08;52;07 - 00;09;14;18
David
They had a pretty good one. Right. So as you look at these things, you know, the strengths sort of plugged in perfectly. I say like sorry, chocolate and peanut butter. And they go very well together. Whatever the specifics were at the time, that is how we plugged into one another. That's what also made it very fun and capable of, you know, executing on growth.
00;09;14;20 - 00;09;30;12
Jennifer
They are exciting. They are exciting. Let's look ahead 12 to 24 months into the future. Yeah. What decision or capability will most separate the companies that grow from those that just merely endure? I.
00;09;30;14 - 00;09;59;19
David
I hate to there's going to be two things. And they are they're married to one another very closely. And I don't like these two letters. But we're going to say I'm AI. Yeah. And culture. And you better have your culture together if you're going to implement AI. But AI is going to be something that the winners are going to look at AI and say, hey, if we built like anything in a department HR today, you know, great one.
00;09;59;19 - 00;10;19;03
David
To use an example, if we built our HR department on how we do tasks and how we function, we got to ask ourselves, how do we build it on top of AI and how do we use people to make the most of those tools? Right? The mistake is to say, how do we have our people utilize AI, right?
00;10;19;04 - 00;10;39;10
David
It's like chicken or the egg. You got to go and sort of look at every department fresh and say, hey, what are we doing? How do we do it? But let's build it on top of an AI platform and make our people like, super human, like super heroes. Excuse me? Super human too. That's fine. And so I think AI super important.
00;10;39;10 - 00;10;55;23
David
And if companies don't get on the bus with AI by 2030, it would be like us saying, right now we don't use computers like we're not. We don't know what. We don't know what teams is. We don't know what a computer is. We just use high desks and quill pens to do our accounting and, you know, things like that.
00;10;55;23 - 00;11;15;23
David
So you got to be AI, but you better have your culture dialed in. And I do think culture is easy. I don't I don't think it's difficult. I know you said, you know, you make it sound easy, but if you hire the right people, culture happens on its own. I don't do anything. I'm not doing anything on a daily basis or than walking around talking to people, getting on the phones, speaking to people, you know, being respectful.
00;11;15;23 - 00;11;28;27
David
Wow, that's a really tricky one, right? Enjoying the people you work with. And well, that that should not be difficult, right? That should be easy to do. But yeah, the culture has got to be a part of it or you're sort of, you know, going to be in big trouble.
00;11;28;28 - 00;11;52;04
Jennifer
Well, you'd be surprised how many people get it wrong. And you're you're just a natural for it. So you think it's easy. But there are a lot of companies out there that don't prioritize culture. They're not intentional with it, and it backfires on them, especially as they go through these big corporate changes, such as your companies when you still have an award winning culture.
00;11;52;07 - 00;11;53;29
Jennifer
I mean, that's almost unheard of.
00;11;54;00 - 00;12;19;23
David
I worked for my mother. I was in the military, and those aren't exactly the bastions of culture, right? But especially working for my mom. But, but, but there was a guy, Tim Perret, that I worked for at Shuffle Master who was sort of like my North Star for culture, and he was just amazing at it. I had a guy, Mark Yost, taught me everything about business, but Mark was a tough guy, right?
00;12;19;23 - 00;12;41;19
David
And he allowed me to, you know, sort of have my own subculture and what I did. But Tim Perret was the guy that said, really, culture for the first time, you know, in my life. And that was I just call it like 2010, 2009, 2009. I want to say it was that was the first time I really heard the term like used in business culture.
00;12;41;19 - 00;12;43;18
David
So he was the guy.
00;12;43;24 - 00;12;59;08
Jennifer
Let's talk about you as the leader. There's a lot of future leaders listening to the program right now. What is an assumption about leadership or growth that you personally had to unlearn as an executive leader?
00;12;59;10 - 00;13;24;25
David
Oh, boy. You know, I think the thing to unlearn is that you're responsible for it, period. Whether it's culture or growth or, you know, just M&A, you know, driving a company, you're responsible as a CEO, you're going to be responsible, right? And the buck stops with you. You know, you're sort of the one that the board or ownership goes to and says, hey, what's going on?
00;13;24;26 - 00;13;49;02
David
Right? But the actual doing of it is not all on your shoulders. And I think that if you unlearn that your job as a CEO or a leader is going to be much, much easier in here, like I'll set up in here. Yeah. And up here. Because if you start to believe that it's all on your shoulders, you're going to crumble the stress.
00;13;49;05 - 00;14;08;13
David
I don't care what anybody says. Listen, the first day you walk into a job as CEO, anyone who says the first job they have, or even the second one you walk in on your first day, if you're not scared, you're a nut, right? You should be scared right? When you walk in. Nobody likes you. Nobody. Not a soul in that building.
00;14;08;13 - 00;14;25;27
David
You're gonna have 900 employees. Nobody likes David Lopez. The first day he walks into the job, there's 0% chance of that. So you've got to win them over one on one by one. But you can't take on the responsibility of doing everything or feeling like it's all on you, or you're just going to you're going to crack, crumble.
00;14;26;00 - 00;14;29;14
David
Yeah, yeah. You're going to be in therapy real fast. Yeah.
00;14;29;16 - 00;14;42;07
Jennifer
Well there's a lot of change. Teague out there right now for executives. And the last six years has been what we're hearing has been very challenging from that perspective from the mental health and workload.
00;14;42;07 - 00;14;43;28
David
And that's a real thing.
00;14;43;29 - 00;14;49;02
Jennifer
It's a real thing. So let's let's talk about a little bit about that.
00;14;49;04 - 00;15;15;17
David
There's a lot of health. Can I just say really quickly please. And as a leader do not do not in any shape or way, shape or form shy away from from getting help, whether it's life coach or therapy. I just want to throw that in there because I think there's some, there's like some, there's like the stigma on on this, there's this it's sort of like this dark area that people don't talk a lot about as executives.
00;15;15;17 - 00;15;34;25
David
I think that people are talking about mental health more, and I think it's something that needs to be brought out into open because I there's some very bad stories that I'm well aware of in our industry. And you just have to like you can't you can't be afraid of doing that. And it should be a part, whether it's life coach or therapy.
00;15;34;26 - 00;15;38;09
David
Don't don't think you're wrong if you have to go do it.
00;15;38;10 - 00;16;05;11
Jennifer
I'll double down on that. Some of the most successful leaders I know have either a therapist or a life coach helping them make those decisions. And and it's not just work. It's everything. Family, health, all of it. So thank you for for saying that. Let's let's talk about uncertainty. There's a lot of uncertainty in many industries right now.
00;16;05;14 - 00;16;16;10
Jennifer
Yours may or may not be part of that. But what advice would you give to fellow leaders navigating uncertainty, and what would you want them to act on?
00;16;16;13 - 00;16;34;18
David
You know, so Covid might be the best example of uncertainty. We never talk. Well, you know, first of all, we never saw a nine over 11, you know, horrible event so well. This is a once in a lifetime thing. And then we never saw the great financial crisis before and our lifetimes. This is a once in a lifetime event.
00;16;34;18 - 00;16;35;20
Jennifer
And then it's just.
00;16;35;22 - 00;16;50;26
David
Covid came and it's like I don't know John Ax leaders are like, how many once in a lifetime events are we going to have? Right. So there's going to be another one. It's happening. It's coming. It's around the corner. I don't know what it is. I don't have a crystal crystal ball. And if I had one it's probably not working right.
00;16;50;27 - 00;17;13;04
David
So I think the one thing that in uncertain times and this might sound super like maybe cultural related, but it really comes down to being transparent and honest with your employees. And then of course, not being afraid. You know, when we make decisions because uncertainty, you have to be you have to be decisive. You got to be bold.
00;17;13;07 - 00;17;38;14
David
You can't be afraid. But you also have to be completely transparent with your employees. When when we had employees on furlough during Covid, I said to HR and our general counsel, let's do, let's do it. Let's do a teams town hall with all the furlough people. They go, oh man. So all the people that are upset and whatnot, you know, you want to get them on a call together with an open mic.
00;17;38;15 - 00;17;57;04
David
Anyone can talk, not a one way conversation. Town hall people can ask questions. That was on video. And I said, yeah, we're going to do it. And they're like, and I said, we're going to do it. That I spoke the truth. They asked questions, I answered questions, and one guy said, I do not like your answer, but I appreciate your honesty.
00;17;57;04 - 00;18;06;27
David
I appreciate you being direct with your answer about what the next steps maybe should be for me. And these people had their spouses on the camera with them.
00;18;06;27 - 00;18;07;18
Jennifer
Oh wow.
00;18;07;20 - 00;18;21;18
David
They were right in the picture. So. But it's the best thing to do. Just be honest. Yeah, it's the truth sets you free on these things. And as a leader, you just want to you want to be transparent, you want to be honest or you're going to screw it up. You're.
00;18;21;20 - 00;18;43;23
Jennifer
And I think that's the theme of this conversation, David, is you have a respect for people and just treating people how you want to be treated and how they want to be treated. So there's the golden rule treat others how you want to be treated. And then there's the platinum rule. Treat others how they want to be treated.
00;18;43;23 - 00;18;51;08
Jennifer
And I think that's your secret to success. If no one's told you before, it's exudes from you.
00;18;51;09 - 00;19;06;28
David
We have we have one of our our core values. Say what you mean. Mean when you say don't say it. Mean. Yeah, yeah. I don't know what that means other than the last part, but don't tell the truth. Tell the truth and don't say it. Well.
00;19;06;29 - 00;19;26;21
Jennifer
Yeah, well, let's get to know you better as a human let you go. We like to demystify the seat of the leader and the CEO. Obviously, you know, you're in a position of leadership. People see the title sometimes before they see the human. Are there any daily rituals that keep you motivated and focused?
00;19;26;23 - 00;19;57;22
David
I don't have them motivated and focused. I'm going to tell you comes from the people that I work with. You know, I can name them all, you know, like chemo, Chris, Julia, John, you know, Mark, you know, segment all these people. I'm missing some, of course. But even, you know, you know, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. The girl that works front desk walking in every day and her her, you know, greeting me, I mean, these people that I work with and the focus that they have and the passion that they have.
00;19;57;24 - 00;20;14;05
David
I hate to say it, but I'm drafting them. They're not drafting me. I'm I'm drafting right behind them on so many things. So that's that's really my secret is you better hire great people around you because they, they have to help pull you along sometimes to not always you pulling them along. Yeah.
00;20;14;06 - 00;20;24;12
Jennifer
Everyone needs a cheerleader. Everyone needs somebody to share energy with. Is there a book or speaker that resonates with you?
00;20;24;18 - 00;20;48;26
David
You know, I hate I hate motivational speakers. I feel like if we need motivational speakers, we are in trouble. So I believe in the the I believe in coaching and therapy and all those things. But man. But Jesse Ensler really is. You can look them up. He is an amazing human being. He came and spoke. He is him and his spouse are worth well over $1 billion.
00;20;49;00 - 00;21;13;19
David
I'm pretty darn sure of it, I think maybe more. But the motivational speech he gave was hilarious. And in the end he had people with tears in their eyes. The guy is dynamic, amazing, hilarious, and he just knows how to hit hard with it. And then Steph Davis is a mountain climber. You could look her up, look her up on Instagram.
00;21;13;26 - 00;21;28;26
David
She is phenomenal and we just had her as a speaker. Unfortunately not in person, but we'll have her again. She was like great, insanely motivating because what she does is is absolutely bananas.
00;21;29;00 - 00;21;34;10
Jennifer
I think that's cool that you bring speakers in for your staff to be motivated.
00;21;34;12 - 00;21;36;02
David
Overcomes fear.
00;21;36;05 - 00;21;39;14
Jennifer
You do find time for fun, for yourself, to even.
00;21;39;17 - 00;22;03;01
David
Fun for me. I love the cook. My what I like to do is watch through network. I love to cook. That's the most relaxing thing. If I can do it every day, it's a great way to unwind. You know? You cook, you do dishes, you clean up, and you don't have to do anything but stare at the thing and worry about what you're cooking and then and then and then scrubbing a pot or putting stuff in the dishwasher is probably the most therapeutic thing I do every day.
00;22;03;03 - 00;22;10;21
Jennifer
Yeah, it's hard to think about anything else except, okay, I got to put the garlic in now, or I need to chop the onions or whatever it may be.
00;22;10;24 - 00;22;11;24
David
And that's the good stuff.
00;22;11;25 - 00;22;17;20
Jennifer
Yeah, it's good stuff. Good stuff. I'm going to end with this. Who? Who inspires you?
00;22;17;25 - 00;22;45;01
David
You know, it's an interesting one. I think that inspiration for me comes from history. You know, the people that I work for, you know, I work for Andrew right now. Weinberg, you know, I worked for Adam Shebib, you know, David Sandberg, you know Miles Kilburn, you know, Marcus Loaf, Tim Parrott, Joe Lotti, all these people that I worked for, it's like it's almost like in my head.
00;22;45;02 - 00;23;07;10
David
It's like the Library of Congress. It's like the library of information and things that they set over the years. And you can you don't have to read every chapter of their book. You can take the chapters that were the best ones. Right. And there's probably some throwaway chapters. Right. But those are the people that absolutely, positively are the ones that motivate me to this day.
00;23;07;11 - 00;23;31;00
David
Right. And I think they're awesome people. They were super successful, super motivating, focused individuals. So I think, I think that is, you know, motivates me. My mother goes in there too, you know, I mean, she is my first boss and, you know, she was she was she was a really great culture. She established in a catering kitchen. But yeah, she was awesome.
00;23;31;03 - 00;23;44;23
Jennifer
Oh that's great. That's wonderful. Well, thank you for being on the program. Thank you everyone for joining us today. That's a wrap for today's show. Everyone keeps shining bright. And thank you again David.
00;23;44;25 - 00;23;45;17
David
Thanks.