What separates us from other consulting outfits is the high caliber of our consultants. Our people combine impeccable academic background, cutting edge research and sound practical grounding to offer our clients insightful strategies and prescient advice.
Check out the profiles of our highly qualified professional consultants. Our key consulting staff include : Sudhir Kalé, Brett Jones, Laurina Yam, Mark Spence and Sangita De.
Sudhir Kalé is the Founder of GamePlan Consultants. He is a world-renowned authority on gaming. Sudhir has a distinguished career spanning three decades as a researcher, thought leader, keynote speaker, and consultant.
Sudhir has published over a hundred articles on the marketing and management aspects of gaming. His papers have been published in top research journals (including Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, and Journal of Applied Psychology) as well as in leading trade journals (such as IGWB, Casino Journal, E-Gaming Review, NA Casino, Asian Gaming Briefs, Inside Asian Gaming, and Global Gaming Business). Sudhir also serves on the editorial review board of several journals in gaming, management and marketing.
Sudhir's gaming expertise includes areas such as customer experience (CX), customer relationship management (CRM), cross-cultural interactions with casino clients, improving customer service, market segmentation and positioning, service marketing audit, branding, organizational culture, and maximizing customer lifetime value (LTV). He has developed a comprehensive CRM model to guide implementation across a range of industries. For many years, Sudhir served on the faculty of the Executive Development Program for Senior Gaming Executives organized by the University of Nevada, Reno. He has also been a regular speaker at Global Gaming Expo both in Macau and in Las Vegas. Sudhir has been a part of the judging panel at several gaming awards.
Sudhir has conducted over two hundred executive development seminars and workshops across five continents. He trains and consults with clients on various aspects of marketing, business transformation, and organizational development. Sudhir has a Bachelor’s Degree in Chemistry from University of Poona, a Masters in Management from University of Bombay, and an M.S. in International Business and a Ph.D. in Marketing from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. An eloquent, intriguing, and sometimes provocative speaker, his views on a wide range of issues have been quoted by media including The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Review, New York Post, Sydney Morning Herald, Forbes, and The Age. He has also appeared on several respected TV programs and on several radio talk show.
For sampling some of Sudhir's papers, please see the Resources page
Brett has a long history of working with gaming organizations. He has helped clubs and casinos to increase revenue, boost profits and strengthen financials.
For over two decades, Brett has been developing and leveraging technology-based solutions to achieve operational and strategic objectives.
The core of Brett’s capabilities lies in his ability to drill down to identify the root causes of service failures and develop appropriate solutions to address those failures. He is known for forging and leading high-performance teams that deliver outstanding results under challenging circumstances. Brett also has a strong track record in leading organizations throughmassive transformations.
Brett’s expertise encompasses the design and implementation of advanced patron analytics which he leverages to gain competitive advantage for clients. He is known in the industry for devising and executing service delivery systems and key performance reporting processes.
Capitalizing on his technical experience at strategic and operational levels, Brett has developed optimized service delivery systems for a range of service businesses. He has also designed and implemented quality assurance programs to help improve customer engagement and drive customer lifetime value (LTV). Brett is known for increasing market share and brand equity through advanced customer profiling to deliver better marketing strategies and build customer-centricity into business ethos to drive growth and profitability.
Brett has an MBA degree from the University of Technology Sydney, with a Major in Service Delivery. He also has several qualifications in hospitality.
Laurina has spent over two decades in the gaming and hospitality industries.
She began her career with Conrad Hotel and Jupiters Casino on the Gold Coast (now The Star, Gold Coast) in Australia in 1996. She acted in the capacity of games dealer for two years before joining the International Marketing team as International Marketing Representative in 1998. Born in Hong Kong, Laurina is fluent in Cantonese, Mandarin, English and Japanese.
Laurina is well-versed in several aspects of management including human resources, marketing, and customer service. Her multilingual background enables her to train employees at all levels in different languages. She has extensively researched the problem of employee turnover in the hospitality industry and offers innovative solutions in the areas of employee retention and engagement.
Apart from Jupiters Casino, Laurina has previously worked at the Sunleisure Hospitality Group. She has also taught at Bond University and Griffith University in the areas of Hotel Operations Management, Rooms Division, Tourism and Hospitality Research, and International Food and Beverage Management.
Laurina has Bachelor of Hotel Management and Bachelor of Business degrees majoring in Marketing and Events Management from Griffith University in Australia. In addition to her bachelors degrees, she also possesses a Masters in International Hotel and Resort Management and a Ph.D. in Hotel Management.
Mark Spence, Ph.D., is a Senior Associate with GamePlan Consultants and a Professor of Marketing at Bond University in Australia.
He completed his education at the University of Arizona in 1993 with a Ph.D. in Marketing. Prior to entering the doctoral program, he was Program Manager at Gnostic Concepts, Inc., a market research firm in the Silicon Valley, California, specializing in high technology products. In addition to managing quarterly syndicated reports, he executed both qualitative and quantitative market research, developed economic based forecasting models, and interfaced with high-volume domestic and international clients.
Building on sound theoretical foundations in entrepreneurship, marketing management, and consumer behavior, Mark has worked with numerous entrepreneurs as well as senior managers of existing enterprises to align their organizations for optimal profitability and growth. Mark has been particularly active in customer relationship management, with a focus on organizational strengths and weaknesses, customer segmentation and targeting, and developing programs to deepen relationships with pre-identified core target groups. Mark’s is adept at experimental design and survey research. He has carved out a niche for himself in understanding the behavior ofcustomers under various stimulus conditions.
Along with his doctorate, Mark has a MA degree in Economics from San Jose State University, and a BS degree in Economics and International Business from California Polytechnic State University.
Sangita Dé is Senior Associate at GamePlan Consultants. She also serves on the faculty of Griffith Business School, Queensland, Australia.
She has an expansive industry background having worked with global companies in India, Australia and USA in various sectors like pharmaceuticals, steel, health care and IT. In these positions, she has accrued extensive experience in leadership development, mentoring, on boarding, coaching and executing large-scale organizational change intervention. She is an accredited MBTI, NLP and Six Sigma facilitator. She has also spearheaded the training portfolio for several large organizations.
As the Course Leader of two prestigious Australia Awards projects for Bhutan, funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Australia), Sangita has led programs for Bhutan’s National HRD Initiatives and Evaluating Workforce Learning and Developing Initiatives in 2018- 2019. Sangita has also worked on grants involving problem gambling awarded by the Government of Victoria and is an avid advocate of responsible gambling. She has a Bachelors Degree in Psychology, a Bachelors in Microbiology, a Masters of Business Administration, and a Ph.D. in HR.