Welcome to the Leader's Mindset. We're bringing you illuminating conversations with leaders who are making an impact in their businesses, their companies, and their communities. Today, we're talking with Chandra Deloche Perea, and not only is she the Vice President of Global Field Services, Call Centers, and Technology Operations for IGT, she got recommended to us by good friend of the show and fan favorite Monica Fullerton. So thank you to Monica for introducing us, and thank you for joining us today, Chandra. Thank you. Now, if you live here in Las Vegas, you probably know what IGT is. But for the folks who don't know IGT and don't know gaming in Las Vegas, can you tell everybody about IGT and what IGT does in the big picture of the gaming community? Yes, absolutely. IGT stands for International Game Technology, and it is a company that not only manufactures slot machines and lottery terminals and an array of systems and different technologies within the gaming industry, but it is a global company that provides lottery and game technology to customers throughout the globe. We also have an interactive side, a sports betting side of our business, as well as an array of services that the company provides in the gaming and lottery industry as a whole. Yeah, and that's fantastic. So let's not sell it short, right?  If you've played Cleopatra or any of the video poker machines that you find just about everywhere around the country and around the world now, those are mostly IGT, right? Yeah, absolutely. So yes, I mean, most people know our famous Wheel of Fortune. They know the sound of Wheel of Fortune.   If you go into casinos, you know, you see an array of different brands, but in most cases, you know, IGT is considered, you know, the top of the line, as well as I would say the Mecca. You know, people will ask, what is it compared to? I say it's Amazon of the world in the gaming industry. Yeah, I think I think that's really accurate, because most of the really popular machines are IGT machines and most of the really well known machines are IGT machines. So before we get into more about you and leadership, do you have a favorite IGT machine? I definitely think I go for the nostalgic one. So I would say Wheel of Fortune is absolutely my favorite. We also have like Mystery Prosperity Link, which is also a game that I love. And then in our core space, we have one that's called Diamond RS. And I would also say that that game is a game that I don't frequently gamble. But when I am in the casinos, I do always go and look and see what the customers are playing and what they like and what they enjoy as well as my service employees that I work with, you know, knowing what they like to see or what their favorites are. And the majority of people will always say Wheel of Fortune. Yeah, I've heard that too. It's still however many years in we are such a popular game. And I'm glad to hear you do have a favorite. I kind of expected it was going to be and I love all my children equally kind of answers. So but that's nice to hear. So what is your role as a leader at IGT? How many folks are you responsible for? Are they spread out all over the world? Tell us more about your role in your job. So currently, my role is on the gaming side. Previously, I would say last year I managed both gaming and lottery. Our company is going through a merger at this point in business and divestiture of part of our business on the lottery side. So in my role today, I manage around 650, 700 employees. Last year I was managing 1500 employees. They are global. So I have people in Amelia, A-Path. I mean, anywhere, basically where we have gaming in the industry. I have employees that are managing from a service perspective. And so when we say field services, call center and technology operations, the field services are the technicians who are working out in the field and making sure that our products are up and running. They're doing installs, conversions to our products, system upgrades. But ultimately they are the face to the customer and making sure again that our products are working, that the customer has parts. If there's any issues, they are the first line of defense to make sure that our products are up and running and meeting customers' expectations from their experience. We always say customer experience is our focus. We want to make sure that whatever they're dealing with when it comes to IGT that they feel confident not only in our product, but the employees that are supporting them on a daily basis. And then when you go into the call center side of our business, it's twofold. One part of our call center is the customers calling in that may need something, right? A game is down. A game has issues. Can you send a technician for help? As well as in that space, we have also the technology operations. So for example, a will of fortune is considered a wide area progressive game and we support those in the sense of if a jackpot hits, my organization not only manages that wide area progressive system to make sure it's functioning, that there's proper connectivity, but as well as assisting if a jackpot hits and a supporting the casino to make sure that the customers paid out properly. So there's a lot of infrastructure behind that and making sure that stays up to par at all times. And then when you go into that technology operation side of the business, besides that wide area progressive, it has a lot of system supported interaction to many departments within the organization. Also, technology operations is our product support team when it comes to training. So they train our technicians from onboarding them to make sure that they know the products, how to service the products in any of the outline requirements. They fully understand as well as providing customer support training on our products and making sure, again, that our customers are fully understanding our products so that we can make sure, again, that we our products are aligned with their expectations as well as producing what they need to do from a business standpoint and a return on investment for not only the customer, but also IGT as a whole. And I know that sounds simplistic in nature, right? Because I have people everywhere doing things every single day at every hour you could possibly imagine. It is a rule that is 24 seven in reality, right? I mean, I am always looking at my phone. I'm always checking messages. I'm always making sure that things are going the way they should be as well as that my team supported fully throughout the globe to do their jobs properly. Yeah, it's a ton of responsibility. I didn't even think about the 24 seven aspect of what you're doing. You're doing personally and how you're doing it. I mean, never, never mind that there's stuff all over the world, just that gaming occurs 24 seven in Las Vegas. And that's that's just another layer of responsibility thrown on top of this and 650 people to 1500 people. That's a ton of people to be responsible for. And clearly, you're not staying up 24 seven doing all of this yourself, right? So so how how do you manage those span of control issues? I'm sure you do a lot of delegation. Tell me a little bit about how you've built your team and your organization to to live up to these responsibilities. Right.  And most importantly, when I say I have those eight direct reports, I have instilled in them trust, right? I have to because, again, I can't be everywhere 24 seven as well as they can. So ultimately in my structure, I have directors that manage specific regions to help us manage it from a delegation standpoint. They are in charge or the or the owner of that region that they manage. So they have to do the same thing that I do delegate in their leadership structure as well. So each of those leaders have a large population within my organization that they manage and that they support. So a lot of our support comes in many different areas and and strategy, you know, one of our aspects as leadership, we have to be out in the field. We have to understand what what's happening from the boots on the ground. And sometimes, again, when you are separated by layers of employees, especially in a service organization, you have to really get ingrained with the front line. That's where you find out where our problems are. That's where you find out where our challenges are from an aspect from a customer perspective or challenges they may be having, whether it's, you know, the weather, environmental issues, supply chain issues that you may we may be having or just technology issues as a whole. You know, when we roll out new products, many times we have to really manage those not only from the front end of our business, but when it comes to the service side of it. Again, we're the front line as well as the face to the customer. So there's a lot of work that takes place behind the scenes before our techs touch our products to make sure that they're working working from a functionality standpoint as well as, again, understanding it enough that it questions a rise in the field, not only from our customer aspect, which is the casino itself, but from their customers that are coming in the patrons. Many times again, our technicians are right there if issues occur. So we are interacting sometimes with both, even though our primary customers, obviously the casino itself. So delegation is critical, I guess we say at the end of the day. And when I think of delegation, you know, it's an easy word to say. Oh, I delegate responsibility in my structure. It really comes down to I have to trust the employees. I have to give them integrity, you know, but I should say autonomy to do their jobs without feeling that they are micromanaged. Because again, like I said, I'm not there in most cases. So a lot of communication is required. A lot of updates and issues occur. And then we also have to celebrate the good, right? Majority of the time we do installs or we're servicing our customer. You know, a lot of things go well every single day, but those aren't the things that are highlighted, right? So when those issues do arise, I have to be there to support them and motivate them that they will be able to get through whatever issue it is and just know, keep the focus on the ball at the end of the day, because there's things that we can't control on a daily basis as well. I'm so glad you brought up how much trust needs to go into this, because for me, delegation being able to do that effectively is all about trust. And you have a big team and what's great is you went into how you've built a culture of trust on that team. I didn't even need to ask that question that I, you know, it's kind of one of my on the fly questions of what advice do you have for helping leaders, especially young leaders build trust with their teams? You gave us a great answer on that already and your approach to delegating. So I would like to get into, if you're OK with it, your experience as a woman in the gaming industry, what was it like coming up? What was it like becoming a leader in the gaming industry? You know, women, women correctly so have a very different perspective of of leadership in certain industries, I'd love to get yours. So when I started my gaming career, I started in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and I started working for a gaming commission. It was called Sandia Tribal Gaming Commission, which is one of the largest tribes in New Mexico, and I started my career in human resources. And that is how I got into working for the tribe. And when I first started, again, not knowing anything about the gaming industry, except for my human resources experience, when I got there, I didn't understand many things, right? I didn't understand tribal culture. I didn't I wasn't familiar with the industry as a whole. And I learned very quickly at a young age that the best way to learn an industry and the best way to engage yourself day to day is not only understanding the culture, you know, you understand the culture of not only who you're working for, but what it means to them, right? At the end of the day, the most important piece to me when I worked for tribal gaming was knowing that everything I did every single day impacted the community as a whole, not only the tribe, but the state of New Mexico and what they were doing and what they were providing, because many eyes were on gaming when I first started. I've been in the industry for 25 years. And when I had that opportunity, I embedded myself in asking questions, a lot of questions and learning about the people from the community, which helped me bridge the gap to knowing my purpose, right? My purpose was to, again, hire employees, make sure that they were able to get licensed for the tribe and that those employees would be retained employees for a long term success at the tribal level. During that time, I was also very young and eager and wanting more. I knew that I liked human resources, but that I also wanted to expand my experience. And so very quickly when I first started for the tribe, I worked again in their HR department and there was opportunities to work in the gaming commission. So I transferred into that organization based off of my skill set. At the time, I was an inspector, so you go out and you look for like an auditor, basically, and you're looking for areas where the tribe needed to fix things or improve things. And I worked my way very, I worked strategically and again, I didn't know that back then when I was that young, that I was strategically doing things to help me be successful. And I go back to my primary was understanding the people and getting to know leaders within the organization. And with that being said, some of that also comes from, you know, I was raised in the military, so thank you, Jason, for your service. My dad was in the Air Force. And I learned things from him watching him, you know, from chain of command, respect, again, having high integrity. So during that time, I always kept those characteristics and attributes close to my sleeve and knowing that those were important, especially in a tribal community where respect is critical and being a female working for a tribe. As I worked myself up the ladder and I became the executive director of the gaming commission, my role was to make sure from a regulatory standpoint that everything was accurate. So I managed the licensing organization. I managed their surveillance organization, their criminal investigation organization and the auditors that were in this inspectors that would go out and make sure everything was up to par. And during that time, I worked very close. We always have the gaming commission. You have a group of people who are basically kind of like your board where everything has to go through majority of majority tribes, your gaming commission, commissioners or tribal members. So again, by the fact that I learned about the history, but understanding their culture helped me better prepare myself in that role. But during that time, I also realized very quickly that I was pretty much the only one, meaning the only woman in the room, the only woman that was biracial or woman of color. And though I know I was the only one and saw that as a situation where again, some people see that as difficult. Some people see that as equality issues. I took it a little bit different when I was young. That's all I knew, right? I didn't know what to do, how to maneuver through that. So my brain, my thought process during that time was just be the best you absolutely can be. And if you keep on shining and keep on doing what's needed, if you go the extra mile, if you get to embed yourself and connect with people, then opportunities will come. And I believe throughout my career those opportunities came because I was doing that and I was mindful of that. And there was a point when I was working for the Gaming Commission, you would hear throughout tribal gaming as a whole that many people that worked in certain positions, not being a tribal member, that your time within that role was going to be short, right? Because when you weren't a tribal member, there was a lot of turnover and a lot of roles. So I was with them for 10 years. And I got my bachelor's while I was working with them. They were very supportive of that the entire time. And so at that 10 year marker, I had always said and had a vision that I wanted to work in the mecca of gaming. So I put a put a plan to move to Las Vegas, the mecca of gaming and start my career and transition from what I was doing in regulatory to look for opportunities in Vegas. So through that time, again, still being mindful, there's, you know, it's all mill industry I applied at IGT. And I knew during that time, I really didn't want to get back into the regulatory role I wanted to expand my experience. So that's when I started working in the service side of the business. And I was hired as a service manager at that time. And again, same thing, you know, I was the only one in the room, the only female, not only in my service organization as a leader, but in many roles and aspects of the business. I was noticing much more at that time when I was mature, more mature, older, that I was the only one. And then that and that the issues that I saw during that time and still today was really more around equity and pay in general. That was the primary when it comes to being the only one in the room or having, you know, majority male colleagues, I did the same exact thing, looking for allies, looking for people that believe in me and not only believe in me, but believe in women leadership as a whole. And I would connect with them and drive my activities and my business by knowing who I who's supporting me, who I can go to for questions. And so I didn't ever ever really look at it as an issue. You know, as I've gotten older, you know, I'm much more mindful of my audience, what's going on around me and my environment. And I could say that, you know, in the in the gaming industry, not only because of different organizations that support gaming as a whole, but with women in general, there's a lot of support groups, a lot of areas within the business, whether again, it's global gaming women or looking at lean in and supporting each other through our journeys. Because again, we're working in a male industry as a whole, but it has improved greatly, right? There's a lot of discussion. People are talking, people want to see improvements as a whole. People are trying to find where can we recruit more females in the industry into the business and slowly, but surely we're seeing that and we're seeing that the emphasis on DE and I and females and all of our underrepresented communities, because there's an emphasis and because there's a focus and because there's people like myself that are engaged and involved not only in the community aspects, but also aspects in our industry. That we are seeing strides and improvements, but it's slow. That's the easiest way. It takes time. That's amazing. So first, before we blow past it, thank you for your service as well. I appreciate you thanking me for my service, but I always like to make sure that we thank folks who come from military families as well. Because, you know, Monica, when when the member serves, the whole family serves, right? And and when you've lived that life, we all we all understand that, but I don't think that's the right thing to do. We all understand that, but I don't think that that gets out enough into the public world. So first, thank you for that. It sounds like you've had an amazing career. It sounds like you've really been a pioneer helping women in the gaming industry. So let's let's dig into a little bit about these organizations. You've talked about global gaming women, women in sports and entertainment. These were organizations I didn't even know existed until about a year ago. And the more I see about them and the more I see the women who are involved with them, the more impressed I am at the impact you're making. So tell us more about let's start with global gaming women and let's just get into everything you're working on with these organizations. Right. So with global gaming women, again, it's been around for a very long time. You know, the women before me, who were in the gaming industry, started global gaming women and it has expanded and grown drastically.  Educational programs, networking programs, a lot of community based programs, and it's a free membership to anybody in the industry, male and female. But the premise of it is to get a group of women together to become their own tribe, right, to support each other, to interact with our male allies, to also understand our needs, our wants, our desires, our issues and concerns within the global gaming women sector. Like I said before me, all of the women historically that were in the industry that, again, have dealt with things that I possibly haven't dealt with that were, again, the only ones for many, many years opened up that door for us to be able to expand this and grow within global gaming women. I am a co-chair to our diversity and inclusion, as well as a committee and our education committee. And within that, you know, we meet, you know, sometimes twice a week, monthly, just to discuss where our weaknesses, what trainings are needed, how do we get a global gaming women's voice out there to reach more females in the industry, to join, to get that support group. And it's a positive because in many cases with global gaming women, though it's an industry, right, it's focused on gaming, you get many different aspects, you know, from people in the hospitality side of the business, the people that are in the manufacturing side of the business suppliers, individual contributors, entrepreneurs that are in the business. And so it's a way of not only connecting and expanding your network, but also hearing from other women, understanding their situations, experiences and stories, as well as what they're doing in the community or in their industry to help advance women as a whole and or other anything within the underrepresented side of population. One of the things that I could say also about global gaming women is they also network with other organizations outside of the gaming industry as a whole. So you think like women's and sports and entertainment. What I would say about also with global gaming women is not only is it helping women as a whole, but it's also connected to the business when it comes to our male allyship, right? So in a lot of those events and activities that take place, we really try to bring our male colleagues in so that they can see what we've created as a whole and how it's impacting us. And again, just to be able to get together in large form forums, to be able to have discussions and talk and uplift women to be motivated to know that, again, the challenges we face today, we faced them before. But where we were at before is very different than where we're at today. And when I talk about women in sports and entertainment, I am also on their committee, their mentorship committee. And that experience has been different because it's not the same as the gaming industry. So recently I was on a panel where we spoke about mentorship and we did it at our the baseball field here in Las Vegas. And we got an array of people. I mean, from from the industry that work with the aces, people that work with the Raiders. So it's very different in their world, too, because yet they are dealing with men all day long, right? They're their customer. I guess you could say at some point is majority all men. And to see where their challenges have been and what they face is different than the gaming industry, but at the grassroots, it's the same. And now with all of the emphasis and all of these amazing female sports teams, especially now with basketball, where all eyes are on watching our women and basketball players in college, there is a avenue that you're seeing grow from young girls being excited and wanting to be more involved in sports and understanding sports. And then I look at even with football when you see what Taylor Swift has been able to do in that arena of little girls watching her on TV. And now they're sitting down watching football with their mothers and fathers and getting excited about football because the superstar is watching it also. So there's a lot of energy and excitement when it comes to women in sports and events as a whole. And I see that again, when you look at gaming and women in sports and in events, it's about entertainment, right? It's about people, how they are engaged in gaming as a whole, how they're engaged in sports and events as a whole. And to me, there's that bridge of what it looks like from the outside looking in. And so when I think about where we were at previously and where we're going, it, like I said, previously, there's baby steps. But when the environment and the culture around us is just as excited as we are, it brings a different dynamic to the industry as a whole. Well, energy and excitement is what we do best here in Vegas, right? So I'm so glad to hear more about global gaming, women, women in sports and entertainment. I only knew a little bit before today. I'm so glad to hear that you guys are having success with what you're doing with that and it's it's helping the industry in the community here as a whole. Vegas has changed a lot since the first time I stayed here. I stopped over one night driving through on my way to my first Air Force assignment in the mid 1990s, loved it. Energy and excitement just a different time. What got you excited about being in Vegas and the industry in Vegas at first? What's changed? What are you excited about now that's going on here, both in the gaming industry and Vegas in general? You know, I think of Vegas again as the Mecca, right? I mean, of everything you could possibly imagine when it comes to gaming and the 24 seven aspect, right? Anywhere at any time. And I know by you living here, we can go and get anything done, right? You could go if you want, I mean, things from if I was a worker who works swing, I could find a hair salon that's open till midnight or even after hours, primarily because again, the community, you have people working different shifts at all different times, you know, because that's a 24 seven community basically. So to me, that excitement of living in a place that is alive, I would say, at all times was exciting and new and different for me. I wasn't used to that aspect. So I'd say that was probably the most exciting piece, just knowing that again, everything's open, you could always find something to do. There is restaurants, whatever you want, basically, you could say whatever you want, it's available for you and it's the best of the best, whether it's the best hotels you want to stay in, the best restaurants you want to go to, the best entertainment venues you want to go to, best concerts you want to see. And a lot of great things come here, a lot of great events that are different than anywhere else and living that and feeling that and seeing that is exciting. When I think of where we're at from an industry, you know, we started off with coin games and then we went to ticket in, ticket out. And now you're seeing more and more places be completely cashless, not only previously from a technology standpoint, but when COVID hit, that really expanded just because of the pandemic. So with that technology growth, everything is evolving in every aspect of our business. And I think that's my biggest piece of excitement is where will technology go? You know, will we see more robots and casinos in the future? Will we see more AI being utilized? Will we see more machine learning being utilized from a productivity standpoint? That's where I see the industry continuing to go, how to be more productive, how to be more efficient and effective, how to provide more cleaner customer service, understanding the customer base to the ability that if Chandra sits down at a slot machine, they know everything Chandra likes to do. What I like to eat, what I like to drink, what entertainment I like. And so they start more and more telling it to the individual. And that is already happening in the industry. But I think as we proceed, that's going to be much more inclined to that special experience, not only for when you walk into a casino, but the overarching piece of individualization of what that person likes and that casino knowing right when I go into that, you know, to that property, knowing everything about me just because again, of how the databases, if I have a players club card, they know what I like, how I like it and when I like it. So I keep on seeing that in reality, that's going to continue to evolve so that the experiences people have are more individual based off of what they want and desire. Yeah, that's exciting. The idea of a completely customized, bespoke Las Vegas experience for every person who comes anytime, day or night, any day of the week, any time of the year is is really exciting. I love the twenty four seven aspect of Vegas, too. I don't know if you've ever tried to live anywhere else after living in Las Vegas. And it is hard. It is like I moved to Colorado Springs after my Air Force assignment here. And it is hard when things shut down at like nine or ten at night.  But I'm very glad to be back. And you've seen a lot of change in your time here. You've grown a lot as a leader.  Again, keeping an eye on the ball of the industry, that's probably the most important piece because, again, it is evolving and every market is different, right, to some degree, every country is different. So the more that I can keep myself educated and aware of what's happening, not only in Las Vegas, but around me from a business perspective and operations understanding all of the challenges that are out there legally, you know, legally, politically, what's happening, what the environment, understanding where certain markets are trying to go, whether they're trying to expand in the sports betting side of the business. And they're looking for state representation in the sense of supporting their needs and wants and desires. So I really just say keeping myself educated is probably the most important piece of knowing where we're going and how we're going to get there. And what are those challenges that are happening at the various market levels? Which takes a lot of work, right? Because there's a lot of information out there. So I have various newsletters and publications that I receive on a daily basis. And I make sure that, again, when I have downtime to read them and be very mindful that other things are happening outside of just what's happening in Vegas, and that I think is critical. It's critical. Yeah, we're big fans of continuous learning, lifelong learning and continuous improvement here. So that is that is great to hear that that the things we talk about here are the things folks in real positions of real responsibility, high positions of responsibility are are doing. That's that's really refreshing to hear. OK, tell me if any of this sounds familiar to you. Best place to work for disability inclusion, one, the diversity and inclusion category from the Women in Gaming Awards, a quality 100 award for LGBTQ plus inclusion from the human rights campaign. That's just 2023 in 2024. And we're only really a couple of months into 2024. Best diversity and inclusion employer at the European Casino Awards, which is a three-peat, by the way, third time in a row, IGT has won that. So I know you've had a big role in this at IGT. Why is IGT so good at diversity and inclusion? How have you and your colleagues developed this kind of culture that not only are you doing a great job at it, but everybody in the world is recognizing IGT as among the best for diversity and inclusion? Well, first and foremost, we love our people. I think that means more than anything you can imagine in business. When a company wraps themselves around the people to not only understand what they are going through, what they need, listening to them, a lot of collaboration in that DE and ISPACE to forge us forward when you put your people first and when you understand that not all populations within your organization have the same thoughts about the business and you take the time to understand where their pain points are, where there are diversity issues, where people don't feel included and where there are equity concerns, that's your first step. And then building structure around that. So when IGT took on DE and I, which many organizations did many years ago, they were very strategic in doing that, defining one, creating a DEI leadership organization as well as a diversity and inclusion council of different voices across the company and then using the leadership and that diversity and inclusion council to set the policies, procedures and requirements, that was that initial step. From there, it was building within that to say what type of trainings that are needed throughout the organization to help them understand DE and I as a whole, IGT during that time after they created the council and the leadership team, they really focused on employee groups within the underrepresented segment. So like you were saying, the LBGTQ plus area of our business, African Americans within the industry, our military veterans within the industry, as well as our women's inclusion networks. And then expanding on that, looking at other underrepresented areas to continue to grow those diversity and inclusion groups in the business. That allows for those individuals who are interested from not only a leadership standpoint to better understand their employees, but people in that population to have a support group that they can have discussions on that has really propelled IGT. While I say that we have these beautiful diversity and inclusion groups as a leader, I thought of it in two folds. And so my aspect was not only did I have stories or a voice or a belief in it, but I also realized that during that time that I had many people within my organization that may not know certain aspects of different people's cultures or when you look at people with disabilities as a whole, there's a lot of silent disabilities that you don't see on the surface. So we really have worked really hard. That's the best way of saying it is trying to continuously engage the employees and hear what their problems are, hear what issues they're seeing or having and incorporating that into our DNI space, whether it's having conversations, difficult conversations, checking in with the employees when things are happening out in the environment that may impact them at work and just opening up that dialogue so that we know what's going on at the employee level and what their needs are. When you look at the diversity inclusion groups, that's a level of support that's needed. And then when you look at the training piece, that's really to help people not only within their maybe underrepresented group to know how to maneuver through the business, but also to look at aspects that maybe there's blind spots that other leaders or employees need to be aware of to help them maneuver on their day to day basis. We also have I am a sponsor of one of our diversity inclusion groups, which is NextGen, and it's more in relation to bringing in younger talent as well as for that younger talent to understand the various generations, the styles of management that may be different in how those generations impact our next generation or our youngest employees coming into the organization. And we also have Wow, which is another diversity inclusion group that is for people over the age of 50. And to see things today where you see our older generation working with the younger generation to make sure that they understand that, yes, we work different, our styles are different, what we expect at work is different. And being able to share that and bring understanding, I could tell you is extremely powerful. Some of those awards that you mentioned, which just made me so proud to be a part of IGT, as well as all of the community work that takes place, right? There's things that we do across the globe from working with youth in the various markets, helping the community get them resources like laptops in their various and various schools, working with community engagement from serving the underrepresented population to other areas and again, bridging those gaps of community employee and increasing the engagement because people do have beliefs and want to be part of the community and want to feel valued and with our purpose, right? Depending on who you are and what you feel your purpose is, we have seen vast improvements in just again, being able to put it on the table, say, we know there are problems. This is what we're trying to do. There isn't a right way. There isn't a true answer. If not, we wouldn't have a DNI organization trying to make that part of our DNA, trying to get it to a point where all groups feel equal, where all people feel like their voices are heard is a challenge every company faces. And we've done a really good job at it, but we also know that our work is not done, so we will continue to push forward. And hopefully we have many more awards in the years to come. I hope you do too. It's exciting. It's impressive. All the awards you've won. And this goes back many, many years. This is just I just looked at 2023 and 2024. It you've given us a fantastic roadmap, whether we're a big company or a small business on the things we can do to start incorporating diversity and inclusion into our organizations as well. So that answers that question for me is what's the advice? I I don't need to tell you, though, there are some organizations that haven't quite embraced diversity inclusion. Maybe they don't see a need for it. Maybe they have some other reasons. But what how what would you tell a company? Or how would you give advice of why why organizations, why leaders should be concerned and should embrace diversity and inclusion in their organizations? I mean, the number one is, you know, when you look at companies as a whole, right, it's about return on investment. We have to be real at the end of the day. When you look at return on investment, there are so many studies and so much data out there to show that when you have a diverse population at every level in your business, not only from a return on investment standpoint, your bottom line is impacted in a positive when you have that. Because again, DE and I as a whole is really about having a diverse population so that you can meet the needs of the business, right? So at the end of the day, when you look at two ways, you look at the company and you look at what is that organization look like from a diversity standpoint, and then you mirror it to our customer base. You want those to marry each other in some aspects, because then, you know, you're building products, right, that meet the community's needs, thinking what through a DE and I's lens at some point, as well as as a company to get those aspects and to learn those aspects and to know those needs. You have to have a diverse population. If not, you might miss the ball and create something that doesn't meet the needs of the community because your lens are sheltered to some degree. So to me, when I look at it as a group, it's not just about the people, right? It's mirroring your customers. And then when you start mirroring those, you have to look at other aspects.  And to do that, you have to be really mindful and take an effort to ensure that you're looking at those aspects and being mindful of those aspects because it's return on the investment is the priority, right? And you have to have a community and an internal organization bridging that gap is really about mirroring each other so that you are providing services or products that meet the community's needs. And so going back into that data of showing that companies that are more diverse do bring in more revenue, you have happier employees, you're more productive, you're more efficient, you're more effective. To me, that's a cell in itself, right? But to get there, it takes a lot of strategy. How do you recruit? What are the organizations you're recruiting from? Do they span in all of those areas so that you can get a more diverse population that you are hiring? And that work is difficult in many cases, depending where you are in the world, you might not have schools that have that diversity in it to recruit from. So you have to look and you have to seek and search and really, again, get to the grassroots to know where where are these people at? How do I get these people to come? And how does it look from the outside looking in? So one aspect I can share with that is because I manage our service organization, we did a we focused a lot on trying to bring in more female technicians. And the first thing that we did was we went out and asked our female technicians that are already hired. What do they see? What do they feel they need? How did they how did they bridge their career to come into this organization? And what brought them here? And during that time that we asked those questions and just talking to, I think I need to probably meet with my female technicians again and ask the same question, but some of the stuff was basic, you know, how we market it. Right? When you look at pictures of technicians and you're recruiting and you're using pictures, you know, do you show female technicians, you know, fixing slot machines because that's a positive. People see it or a younger person's coming out of school or just getting into their career and they see that, oh, I can do this. Then you can possibly bring in more females to be interested in applying. So we looked at, you know, again, same thing, very grass root aspects. As well as if you go into casinos, now you see slot machines have, you know, have historically sometimes they'll start scaling down and being smaller sizes. But if you go into casinos today, they're huge. A lot of the slot machines are big. They weigh, you know, 400, 500, 800 pounds. And that's another aspect you have to think of. If you're a female and you see that, you may think right away, oh, I can't physically move that. Well, there's tools to help move that. And so looking at those aspects of, OK, if I am bringing in more females and they are apprehensive to lift things that are, you know, three, four hundred pounds, do you have the resources and tools to help them? So from an equity standpoint that they are able to do the same thing as our men in the field are able to do. So to me, again, those are just a mindfulness and being aware of it. And those are areas that we try to focus on all the time to make sure that our employees are safe, but that they have the tools to be able to do their job male or female. So it sounds like if you like making money and you want to get new customers and keep customers coming back and you want to have happy employees who keep working for you, diversity and inclusion is something that's really important to keep in your long term strategy. Is that fair to say? Absolutely.  Just to think again, how does this impact everyone and how can I minimize issues but know that the more diversity I have, the more enriched discussions you have in it provides value in everything you do if you do it the right way. Excellent. Well, speaking of awards and speaking of happy employees, you personally won an award in twenty twenty one for innovation and employee engagement. So how can we, whether we're a solopreneur, small business, big company, how can we all innovate employee engagement with our team? Yeah, that that be very happy and honored that I received that. It goes back to again, I believe knowing what your people are doing and how they're feeling. And that's an area that many times as you rise in your career, if you don't stay in tune or in touch with your frontline organization, you're missing a lot of areas. So a lot of those innovation engagements that happened during that time was really looking at the blind spots, looking at the blind spots in the sense of what is the issues that are being faced and how do you help them help the employee maneuver through that? So we did things, not my, you know, when I look at that, I don't look at that as even though I received the award, I look at who are all the people who helped me get that award and why is it so important? And during that time in my career, I was really focused again on getting out in the field, understanding our employees and trying my best to bring people along on my own journey through that time frame. So I think the main one of that is really, again, I was very engaged with the front line, I was engaged with the problems and issues that were happening. And I looked at activities and events and ways to not only bring people into that diversity and inclusion space, but I also looked at things that on a day to day basis, how do I get the employee who's an individual contributor who's working out in the field who may not have a manager in that state motivated to want to do more, motivated to feel included in the business. And I did many different things. I mean, from hosting events to having difficult conversations with my team, to doing fun things, playing games, bringing groups together and having events, managing employees to know that they are the most important part of our business. And even though they're out in the field and they're out of sight, out of mind, bringing purpose and value to them, having them really understand that their day to day task and their purpose of their job is much more impactful than they possibly see on a day to day basis. So the more understanding, the more education was one piece of it. The other piece was just being engaged as a leader and letting them know that even though I might be a different title, that who I am is Chandra first. I have this discussion quite often with people about D and I are just again being a woman and how have I gotten from point A to point D? It's really about people learning who you are first. I say, when I walk in a room, somebody might see me and say, oh, that's the VP and she works at IGT. I really try to flip that and say, I want people to know Chandra first. Yes, I'm IGT and then my VP title, because at the end of the day, we're all the same. And so the more that I can be consistent in my leadership, consistent in how I interact with people at every single level, there's a success story to that. People see that you're authentic because, again, they watch you. They want to know that you walk the walk and talk the talk. And if you are not authentic in that, people pick up on that very quickly. So I credit that really to my background being in the military, with the military father moving around the world, having to make friends, having to interact with many different people from diverse populations has helped me maneuver in that. And so when I look at that award, I really did think the first the first when I received it, the first thing I thought about is how great it is that I was able to experience that at a very young age. And it became second nature to me. So I look at that award as many aspects in my life where I thought it was difficult to maneuver through that, that those skills that I learned at a very young age helped me get that award at the end of the day. That's so fantastic, especially the parts you talked about helping the people on your team find meaning and the impact of what they do every day in the bigger picture. And so staying engaged with our front line, whether our front line is down the hall from us, or in your case, all over the world, it's a challenge. What are some of the tech tools that you and your team use to stay engaged with the front line, keep everything running, keep getting that feedback from them on the front line and what recommendations, especially for folks who are to run in remote teams about tech, what do you guys use and what are your recommendations? So what do we use? We have a lot of meetings and we have a lot of technology so that if issues are arising, we can get those, get that information to us quickly so that we could address it and escalate it and work cross functionally to support them. Big, big, big concern. The quicker, the faster and the easier it is for the people in the front line to get that information, not only into the system so that other organizations can see it, but also that we can support them while they're in front of the customer's critical. So we have a lot of system set up and processes and workflow set up to help that side of the business, as well as, again, meetings. Again, I know most people like, oh, goodness, another meeting. But meeting with our employees on a regular basis is critical. Right.  But if it's not a formal discussion and it's just fly by discussions, you don't get the same sort of input that's needed. So we have regular meetings at various levels within the organization. So their supervisor, their manager, their director, we have monthly meetings with some organizations, depending at the level it is. Other ones are weekly meetings just to help you keep your eye on the ball. But we also go a step further as a leader. So critical for me to get other leaders in the organization that my team interfaces with to get them in the field to see same thing. My employees, I want to know how they impact the organization and their purpose. Having leaders at different levels and different organizations do the same thing, go to the grassroots, go in the field, see what's happening and see how it's impacting their business is crucial. So we try to push that and get that, for example, our CEOs have went out in the field, they have went on a ride along with the technician, that is a price that's priceless, priceless for the technician to say, wow, our CEO did it and went with us out in the field and saw our pain points or saw the positives, that's great. But they have a better understanding of what happens on a daily basis and how it influences everything we do influences our return on investment, our products as a whole, how we manage, how we speak about them, how we interact with the customer. So that's critical, getting your people out there. And many times, like I said, if you go and ask leaders at the top, have they went in the field, do they walk the floor? Do they interact with employees at all levels? And are they present when they do it? If they go on a ride along and they're in a van with the technician, it's one-on-one interaction. So they get that better understanding and have those conversations themselves. And it's phenomenal what you can see what will happen. We also have business partners in our, we call our people HR, people in transformation. We encourage our people in transformation team to also go in the field to understand, again, what's happening, how it's impacting us, how our employees are feeling, what motivates them, what doesn't motivate them and how we can be more engaged. So to me, it's like an octopus, you know, there's prongs out there and they're touching many areas. It's coming back to the center for us to be able to build, grow, develop and look at our opportunities. And we do a really good job at it. In the service side of our business, but again, there's always room to grow. So I would tell any organization, figure out ways to know what your front lines going through, support them and provide them tools and resources to be able to understand what they're doing from a data perspective so that you keep an eye on the ball and the more that you support them and the more that you understand what they go through, the better you are off in the business as a whole, because then you are able to speak on their behalf and understand how to get better at what you're doing. To stick with the human side of things, when you are looking at someone to fill a leadership position, what are you looking for for them to kind of come out of the box with? You know, what do you expect them to kind of already have? And then what what kinds of things are you looking to develop in them when they start to work for you? Yeah, so from a leader standpoint, you know, again, depending on which role it is that I have, it's really more about one, do you have a skill set? Do you have the competencies to do that role? And if you have those competencies, what are those competencies around based off of my current organization of direct reports? So I always look for that molding. You want to bring somebody in the organization that that is from a diverse population, so the more diversity I have, the better my team is. So from a diverse perspective, you know, I look at those mindful of what my team currently has, where our weaknesses are in my current leadership and how that person will mold into that organization to help the team grow as a whole.  Are they determined? Are they a self starter? Do they have, you know, besides the competencies of what that role requires? But do they have an emphasis on being innovative in their thought process? You know, just because we may have done something X-way for 20, 30 years, doesn't mean that's the right way. Do they have the initiative or understanding how to maneuver through that to see where the gaps are, where the opportunities are? And if they see those opportunities, are they able to define solutions and research what's out there already without having to be spoon fed because it's global and because I have people spread out, there's a lot of areas where they have to be more efficient in how they do their business because they there's not a leader there to tell them I need you to do A, B, C and D. So having that those attributes and characteristics of being a self starter, being mindful of the industry, knowing where to get from point A to point B without having to be told how to do it, as well as how they communicate, how they interact with others, how they connect with others. Are they able to have a tough skin in some cases? If they started the company, it takes years to get to know who's the right people and how and how to maneuver through that. Do they have the initiative to pick up the phone to get to understand the other organizations as well as being mindful of that we're global so do they know different cultures? How different cultures interact? And through that, when you're trying to find that right talent to mold into your organization, do they have the want and need to grow and develop? Right? Some people will come to you and they feel like they know how to do everything, they feel like they've done everything. They're they're leading through ego in many aspects, in many cases that doesn't work because you haven't done everything and you don't know everything. And if you come into a team with those attributes, you may not connect with the people because they're going to shield themselves because they're not going to connect with you because they feel that you already know what you know more than me in perspective when you find people that are like that. So I also, you know, how do I connect with them? Do I feel that we'll work well together depending on their style of leadership to our styles of leadership mold together? And really a lot of that is just having discussions and getting becoming very authentic when you have those discussions to, again, know what they want to need and desire and making sure that we are the right fit for them and they're the right fit for us. So see, folks, you don't need to take my word for it in my videos. You just heard a VP of a big gaming company tell you all the things that we're really looking for. Anybody's really looking for when they're hiring someone for a leadership position. So thank you for sharing that with us. I feel like sometimes I talk to people, they don't believe me, but I hope that you that that all those things like initiative and lifelong learning and accountability and and fitting in with the culture are all important. So you've had a lot of great success. But leadership isn't all success. What was one of the best mistakes you've ever made and what did you learn from it? I think my best mistake I ever made is when I came to IGT and picked IGT as the company I wanted to work for. I was obviously I was younger. I've been in IGT for 15 years. I came from New Mexico, which again is very smaller, smaller community. And when I came here, I was just excited, just excited by the lights, the action, the 24 seven. And so when I applied at IGT coming from New Mexico, I had a role in New Mexico that was pretty much the top of the roll at a young age. I'm executive director of the Gaming Commission. My my boss was the governor of the tribe. And when I moved to Las Vegas, I didn't know what my value was from a job perspective. I thought I'm coming. Oh my god, I'm applying to a corporate company. It's huge. It's global. And my mistake was when I applied, I applied at a manager role. And I should have applied for a higher role, but many women do this, right? You look at a job description and if you don't meet 100 percent of the job description, you won't apply for it. Very different than our male colleagues, our male colleagues look at the job. If they meet it 50, 60 percent, they'll apply for it and they may get it where many women don't do that. And I look back during that time thinking if I would if I would have understood that differently, would I have applied for higher roles? I absolutely would have. I applied for lower level roles because I didn't have an apples to apples comparison. And during that time, I didn't have people mentors that I felt like I could ask within the industry, whether that was a fear or whether I just didn't I just didn't do it. Now, as an older, definitely I think back, goodness, I should have asked those questions or or or seek that information because I would have applied most likely for a higher level role. And what does that mean? I think that's a big picture from a social economic standpoint, because women do get paid less than men from a retirement standpoint. I would be in a different position most likely than I am today. And to me, I talk about that often. It's knowing what your worth is and being and feeling safe in that space to know that, yes, you could apply for roles that you may not be fully qualified for. Some you may get some you may not, but holding yourself back and limiting yourself and applying for roles that you feel you do have a hundred percent may limit your growth and development as a whole. And I feel like that was my worst mistake. And during that time, did it impede my development and growth? I think slightly, but most importantly, I'm aware of it now. And I definitely tell the story to younger women all the time that there's nothing wrong with applying for something that you only have 50 or 40 percent of the skill set, because a lot of times you can learn those other roles. And there may be that one opportunity that you apply for it and you get it and it can change your career drastically. Yeah, I'm going to I'm going to be real honest, like as guys, when we look at a job description, we look at does that look cool? We don't even we don't even look at what the qualifications are. I'm not joking. It's like, that looks cool. I can do that. And I'll go out on a limb and try to give the lady some advice here. You know, maybe it's not my place. But like you said, don't worry about it.  Do they meet the qualifications? They're saying that job looks cool. And I think I can do it. So give that a try. All right. Who is someone you admire as a leader or in business? Wow, there's a lot. I don't like to always give names, but I would say I admire my my boss. His name, I won't say my boss. I admire my boss drastically. He is a senior vice president in our organization, supply chain and services. And I admire him not only for being just a great human being, first and foremost, but I admire him because in my role, he has given me the autonomy to be a great leader and not only by trusting me and believing in me, but making me feel that way every single day of my job, whether I make a mistake, whether I don't feel comfortable doing something, I know I can always go to him and I could always ask him those difficult questions and he is going to give me advice not only from his heart, but based off of his experience, but also give me room to not feel like I am pigeon-held in that situation. It's more of advice that is this is what I would do or this is what I would try, but not saying you need to do this or you need to try this. So it gives me the luxury of being able to curtail that situation into my own personality and how I would deal with it knowing where his vision is helps me. He is highly intelligent and I tell people much smarter than me. He's a mathematician by trade. So whenever I bring any financial information in front of him, I know that within seconds he's going to know if there's an error or if it was done incorrectly. So he keeps me on my toes to always want to produce or provide him the best information because I know he does have that skill set. But at the same time, make me feel comfortable enough that if I don't have the answer or I don't understand it, that he will guide me and walk me through it all the way. And that has went a long way not only in my career, but as a person, watching him and how he interacts with me, as well as my peers, has made me just a better human being as a whole. When I think about just where I've come from and the support I've had with him, it's changed my life at the end of the day. And I try to tell him this. He's not a person that takes praising like many people. It's difficult to accept it, but it's helped me just again be a better person. You know, when I say as a leader, I believe there's leaders in every single human being, even if they don't know it, if you are able to spark that spark that excitement around leadership and he sparked me.  And he has kept me being thirsty, but I'm not as hungry. I think great leaders at all levels do that. They keep us they keep us excited and engaged and and show us how to be live up to our full potential. He sounds like a great guy, sounds like a great boss. And if he ever wants to come on a podcast and talk about that, you know where to send him. So we would love to have him. We talked about not everything is success. We talked about there are a lot of challenges in leadership. You've got a lot of responsibility, a lot of people you take care of. What keeps you up at night with your job and how do you deal with those things?  The first thing I think of instantly is my people. Are they safe? Are they OK? You know, you know, my my life being in gaming for so long and managing the services organization on and off, you know, like I said, I'm managing them now, but I had a different job at IGT previously where my people were working Monday through Friday more so than 24 seven. And I'd say it's really about the people. Are they OK? Are they safe? Did they make it home at night? If they're out in the field driving around, you know, late hours. Number one is the people. Are they OK? And I always have my phone attached to me and I'm always checking it, whether that's good or bad, but it's just making sure that my people are OK. Well, I think if you're checking your phone all the time to make sure folks are OK, that is probably a forgivable use of technology. So that's how that sounds fantastic. You you seem very calm and centered as we're talking here. I'm sure you have stressful moments. How do you stay calm? How do you stay centered in moments of adversity? Yeah, you're seeing my calm right now. I do try to stay calm in most situations because the calmer you can be, the better you are at your stress levels and how you strategically make decisions or decide.  If I am overzealous or stressed out, they are my gauge to help me as well, you know, whether it's, you know, picking up on my own triggers that I might have or when I'm in those stressful situations. A lot of times I just try to take a step back, whether it's again going outside and taking a breath of pressure or stepping away from the situation, calming myself down, taking deep breaths, speaking to people within my I call it my tribe to help me maneuver through those those times. Sometimes it's easier than said in as a whole, right? But I really think it's my support group really that helps me stay calm and be as open and and mindful of my own behaviors. Because again, if my behaviors, depending on where, you know, what stress level or what I'm doing, people are watching me at all levels, right? My leaders are watching me. My my peers are watching me. The people I manage are watching me. So I try to make sure that when I have those situations that I temper myself to make the right decision, but also be mindful that people are watching and how I, you know, how you interact when you have those situations to me are more important than my day to day at the as a whole. Because when you look at day to day, I know I do that well, but in those times when there is a crisis or an issue, it's more important of how I interact at that point in time versus my day to day, because that's what people remember. So I just really again, try to be mindful of my own behaviors. And if I need a break or if I feel like I need a breather, being OK, telling the people, hey, give me, you know, give me some time. Let me look think about this and I'll come back to you tomorrow. If it's nothing that somebody needs an answer for today and take the time personally to deescalate my own issues before I bring others in or express what's what's going on. Because again, when you're emotional, emotional in those situations, it's not usually beneficial, depending again, depending on what it is. Yeah, I I tell people all the time there's no prize for making the quickest decisions. You know, yes, sometimes there's crisis situations. You know, when we were in Iraq and the rockets were coming into the base. Yes, you need to make a decision quickly. But in most cases in the business world, there's no prize for making decisions quicker than anyone else. And so we don't need to do that. We can take a moment or a half a day or a day to think things through. And I think it's so important, one, from the we're always setting an example. There's always people watching our example. But also sometimes leadership feels lonely and you don't need to do it alone. Having a good support network is really important both inside your organization and outside. So such great advice there. So who is someone or what is something you're grateful for? I am grateful for my family. True, my parents are the best and I always say I don't want to get emotional. But my parents have been my support, my rock. And I am very mindful that not everybody has that, right? I'm very blessed. My parents are still alive.  But most importantly, that in my life journey, they have been there for me every single step of the way, giving me unconditional love every step of the way and have been my rock. And I said, I'm very mindful that many of my friends and family don't have that same solid foundation, but they have been my foundation. And I credit them for many things in my life. But as I get older, I really realize how imperative it is to have that stability in my lifetime. Just again, through my own adversities and issues that I've had growing up, moving everywhere and my own issues that I've had, you know, being a woman, trying to rise above everything I do, trying to be the best at it and drive my own initiatives and dreams and vision. They've always been there for me through everything. And I am so blessed and thankful that I have that and I cherish it more than ever as I get older. Excellent. Wrapping up. What's advice you would give to future leaders, especially young women who aspire to an executive position like the one you're in now or women who are wanting into industries like gaming where there aren't traditionally a lot of women in them. I would say to all women that the more that you focus on what you want, what you need and what you desire and to have a plan, create a plan, whether that plan is I'm going to go to school, I'm going to go and join two networking organizations. I am going to provide community service two times a year. Whatever those aspects are, have a plan and in that plan, be OK that it may not work out the way that you want it to. But if you have it drawn out, if you have a roadmap, it keeps your eye on the ball of where you're going, what you want and how you want to do it. And within that space, find mentors, find people you can talk to, whether it's close people around you, whether it's, I should say, be mindful also of your mentors. You know, you should look at it as you it's your tribe of people that you talk to or or it's the people that you go to for advice. But look at what that advice looks like. Where are they in their lives? What are they doing in their lives so that you are expanding where you want to go and how that development and growth happens in your career? Because ultimately, while we're on our journeys, like I was saying before, when I took the job at IGT, if I may have spoken to somebody or had people that I felt like I could have that discussion with, my trajectory of my career could be very different right now. I could be talking to you and maybe I'd be a CEO of a company versus where I'm at today and don't get me wrong. I'm very honored and blessed that I have the role. I'm in, but having people along your journey that could help guide you at different levels is imperative for your career because you don't see it that way. And many times again, when you're younger, the people you may talk to may not be those stretch mentors, right? The person that's at a higher level that have experienced it, it might be more around your peer group that aren't going to push you out of push you out of your nest and say, figure out how to fly and help you get there. And so to me, it's a critical to have that network, that mentorship, as well as looking at how you're growing. Know that you, if you're looking to be spoon fed, you might get the wrong spoon and it could impact you, right, and how you're doing that. So being able to maneuver, having that roadmap, having people to help you through that roadmap and looking at ways to network and expand that networking, whether it's in your industry or not in your industry, helps you become a more well-rounded person. And the more that you do that, the more comfortable you become, right, if whether you're the only one or whether you're in an environment where you're thriving in, if you are only seeing through the lens that you're seeing through, you're missing out, so broaden your lens and be okay that you don't have all the right answers because that helps you learn and grow as well. And most importantly, we all make mistakes. The more open you are and the more authentic you are when you make a mistake and you have people around you who support you, it's magical. It's truly magical because you end up learning during that time that no matter what you do and how you do it, you have the support group but it's okay to make mistakes, right, because we don't have the answers but the more authentic you are and understanding that, the better you become as a leader because it becomes second nature. It's not an area where you have to think it through in the sense of how can I fix it right away? It's more about I made this mistake, I don't know why or how I did it and how can I get better at doing it with the people around you to help you see through your lens of how you become a better person. Well, that is truly magical, that's great advice. I have no doubt that in the coming years we will see you as a CEO of one of these companies around town here, I hope. I'm looking forward to that day. What else should we know about you and about IGT and where can everyone find you? So what else do you know about me?  I am a grandmother and I'm a young grandmother just so you know that too. And I love, I'm very creative, I design clothes, poetry. I do a lot of other things that keep my brain working and help me stay in my creative zone as well. And I just hope to continue and grow not only as a human being as a whole but more importantly continuing to work in this D and I space to help young women, to help anybody in the underrepresented population, to bridge gaps or to tell stories, to help them know that there are, there is support groups out there to help them. And not only that, just to find people to mentor, ask questions that maybe you don't have somebody in your support group that you could ask those questions to. IGT, I believe that we are going to see much excitement in 2024 and in 2025 as we work through our merger and become a bigger and greater and larger company as a whole and continue to conquer the industry and bring the best products out in the field and innovate and evolve as an organization within our industry. Well, that's great. We are going to have to have you back for a part two to talk about designing the clothes because that is not something I found in my research. So we're going to have to talk about that at some point. But where can everyone find you so they can thank you for being here today? Yes. So you could find me pretty much on any social media platform. LinkedIn is always the easiest. I'm under Chandra Deloche Perea. So if anybody wants to reach out on LinkedIn, please do and I will do whatever I can to help you. That's what you need. Also, you know, again, if people are interested in getting into the gaming industry as a whole, you know, IGT.com, you could go to IGT.com. We have careers and openings there. And if you are interested in something that's on there, please apply for it. And if you have any questions, you could contact me through LinkedIn. And by all means, I'll do whatever I can do to help. Chandra, thanks so much. Thanks so much for joining us today. Thank you all for tuning in. Please do reach out to Chandra on LinkedIn. And thank her for being here with us today. Also, check out some of our other videos and please like, comment and share those if you know someone who can use it and also subscribe so that you get all of the videos when we get them posted. So we love having these conversations with you guys.


My name is Gopir Abala. I'm a CTO of Oxonex. And my colleague Bala G. Sivar is supposed to be here with today. He's not able to come, so I'll be taking care of his presentation as well. We're going to be talking about automating industry regulations enforcement. It's so mainly to see the regulations of many types, right? So we want to cover what is it that we can automate, what makes interesting for us to do with the spinnaker in terms of our delivery automation, and what are the drivers for it actually. And then we'll see some examples of what are the kind of things that we can automate and how we can have it as a policies in the delivery pipelines. Is there a variety of regulations? These are like alphabet soup in some extent. So these standards, they define not only the processes, but also they're not very prescriptive in terms of what is it that you need to do. They define more in terms of the process saying, these are the checks that need to be done. But some of them are more prescriptive like FedRAMP or PCI, but others not as much. So if you take these, there are generally two sections within those. One would be things like the Usher House of Training, onboarding process and things like that. So the tools that do those things are more than manual. The second part of it is in your software delivery, you have to have certain security built-in, certain approvals built-in and validations and those processes that we can automate. So we will look at what are the those kind of process and how we can automate those. So what are the drivers for this automation? So some of the trends there have been is this developer productivity, the focus on reducing the burden on the developer to be in the middle of the security path or knowing all the security processes. At the same time, there is also usually in organizations, the security teams are small and they provide some kind of a guideline saying, you have to have these security checks that are done, but it's up to the teams to follow the process. When it comes to the compliance audit, typically you find places where there are exceptions taken and haven't been recovered. So it becomes a friction between the security teams and the development teams. As we are trying to improve the speed of the delivery, the developers are focused on new features and the delivery of the features, and the security teams become an impediment. So those are some of the drivers to say, how do we do this automation during the delivery process? If you have the pipelines, having those checks in the pipeline at the developer side is also a problem, because now the developers need to understand what the security checks are, and if they have to explicitly create those pipelines with those checks, that becomes a problem. To some extent, policy is a code. If you can define these policies, have some in repository that get executed at different stages in the background, providing alerts to the developers saying, these are the failures or at the deployment time as a admission control in the target environment, then you can get a better response to the security requirements in the organization. So these drivers having the security integrated into the delivery process really needs an integrated approach for the DevSecOps delivery. So what is the complexity here? If you look at the delivery process, it's typically not just one pipeline that goes all the way from code checking to the production environments. In regulatory environments, they have production environments that are independent or separated out with a limited access and also the approvals that happen in the production environments does not allow the same pipeline to go all the way through. So having checks in the pipelines in one pipeline is not possible. So you have to have these verification of the policies done for example, the static code analysis to the code and then vulnerability checks at the time of the deploy making sure there are no critical high in them or if there is a process requirements like Sorbonne's Oxley checking at the time of the deployment, that becomes fairly complex. If you have all these disconnected pipelines and you're trying to do it through Spinnaker itself. So these are the main things that make it difficult to do the complete automation for the security. And doing this at scale becomes even harder. So how do we do it with Spinnaker? So Spinnaker provides some features in terms of security. It has RBAC built into these applications, you can have triggers, who can trigger a certain pipelines, you have service accounts configured. You can also as a process lock the pipelines from the UI and have them only change through Git or automated process through Git. You can have cluster locking, so no changes to the target environments can be done from the UI. And then you get significant audit information from Spinnaker. So you know when a pipeline is triggered, when the pipeline completes, who triggered it, all of these notifications can be captured and you can have dashboards for those. But that's not sufficient in most of the systems. If you look at Spinnaker itself, you can divide the security on top of what you deploy in the production environments to be as a infrastructure security, operational and the delivery security. Typically what we see is the enhancements to the Spinnaker core itself on how we deploy Spinnaker and how we operate Spinnaker, how we manage the pipelines, secrets management, those fall into one bucket. And then the delivery security in terms of what are your pipelines, how are you integrating in an application delivery, the security requirements for those applications, those fall into the delivery security pipeline. So we'll focus more on the delivery security for the application delivery itself. So here, usually we also have extensions in the pipeline and custom integration. So let's say in an enterprise you're using checkmarts or a sneak. You want those checks to be part of the delivery. That means you need extensions to be built into the Spinnaker to verify those. From the security perspective, you can see that security team is trying to protect the application from various types of attacks. It's a security perspective, not a application developer perspective. So if you look at those, they're looking at OSS security. What are the libraries from the OSS that we are including in the software? What code are we forking and using in our code? What are the vulnerabilities that could be exposed because of the code that's being done? And if you're building, are we building it in the right server? You don't want the developers building on their test systems and then use that code to promote to the production because you want to be ensure the compiler and the libraries that are being included are all verified and vetted. In the artifact repository also, you want to make sure you pick it up from the right locations. You don't want the artifacts to be presented in a location where it's not approved by the central team. At the same time, the deployment, who can deploy? What are the processes? You don't want direct access to the target clusters. What are the processes, automated processes that we are using to deploy to those environments? And when you're running load balancers, security groups, what are the possible ways in which it can be attacked? So from the security perspective, these are all the things that they are trying to identify and enforce the threat vectors and enforce the compliance. So these are not exposed. So what that translates to, from an application development and delivery perspective, is all the checks that we need to do. It's a static code analysis, image scanning. When a binary is built, you want to make sure the image is scanned and for any of the libraries that are included in it, come from the right location and known vulnerabilities don't exist for them. You also want to make sure the git branch policies are set. This allows the, ensuring that the changes that are going into the main branch are wetted and you also go through some unit testing or other analysis before it gets into there. And then at the same time, you can also ensure that licensing for the open source. That's also one of the common themes that comes up. And once the binary is built in the testing, you have other processes that you have to go through. So dynamic analysis and if you have a specific process requirements in an organization, some of them could be using G-R, ServiceNow, and ensure the process goes through that for the approvals. So you want to have that integrated in your automated process. And in the staging, similarly, you have additional checks like the Sarbanes-Oxley where you need two different individuals to approve to go to the production. This is just a guideline. And there are some exceptions. Typically you take exceptions when you build the system and you're moving to the production. You know there are some vulnerabilities or process exceptions. Maybe you have to push the heart fix immediately. You have to take those exceptions, but you need to be able to record those exceptions and then fix them as soon as possible. In the production, and you want to make sure the blast radius when you're deploying is small. So you need to ensure that you have some kind of a deployment structure where you can recover from errors very quickly. You want to be able to verify the infrastructure vulnerability checks. And so ingress-aggress for the load balancers and the prominence checks on the images that are being deployed went through the checks. So given all of these things that need to happen, today the organizations, the way they do it is some of these checks get built into the pipeline, but some of these are done outside the pipeline. For example, if you have an image deployed in production and a vulnerability is found for it, there's no way to track that's been remediated immediately. Usually they look at, say, docker registry and say, for this docker registry when a scan runs on it, all these images have vulnerabilities. So if a developer pushes a new image into it, but not necessarily deployed in the target environment, you may not know. And so these kind of exceptions do happen because of the way today the systems are built and who checks the security things. And so one of the things that we recommend is the integrating the security checks in the pipeline and use these prominence checks as admission control during the deployment time. So if they have process requirements like JIRA or a service now, those need to be part of your delivery pipeline. And one of the key things that you have to ensure is Spinnaker, we can do extensions, plugins. You have to make sure that these extensions themselves are secure. They come from the right locations and if you're making them dynamic, that's even more critical that the locations are properly set and the versions are controlled. Admission control is a critical piece. So when we are doing admission control, there you have for us to check whether the image has gone through the proper process and exception approval structures. You need to have some place that it can go and check. So that's where you need a database where you can verify the prominence of the image that is coming through and check that. So that's one of the things that we will talk a little bit more after this one.  That's typically one of the critical requirements. And so you need to make sure everything that's happening is auditable and have a database where you can present the data and alerts on the policy checks. So here the multiple groups are involved. That's one of the key problems, right? There is a security group involved. There are DevOps groups that are involved. And the actions taken by different groups depend on what kind of alert that comes in. And everyone needs to be aware that there is an action that needs to be taken. So that's where the alerting and ability to share these alerts is critical. So one of the things that we talked about is we need to be able to check the prominence at the end, which means since in a spinnaker, even if you run the pipeline, there is a pipeline execution data. Even if you have multiple pipelines, you have execution data across these. Now the trick becomes, how do you correlate the information across these and have a policy that can run on the pipeline? For example, if you are deploying in a production system from an artifact tree to a Kubernetes environment. So how do we ensure that the artifact that is in the artifact to the container was built on a certain date file, a certain commit? So that correlation information is one of the pieces that I was missing. So what we need to do is have some kind of a correlation database built. So this is something that we built. So there is a database, then you can expose the data at the deployment time as an admission control. If you want to check a provenance of the image, is it built by a certain build system within the last two days? So we should be able to check those kind of things. So that's where, then we can have these policies that can apply to the data that we are delivering through the pipelines and that can be integrated in the spinnaker pipeline to check at any given time. So when we talk about the policies, what we are talking about is simple things like these, right? Is check with Sorbin's Oxley compliance in a pipeline. So if you're deploying to production environment, can we check if it's been approved by more than one person? Or the vulnerabilities, are there any critical or high before we deploy? Or any changes to the pipelines happen and are they only from authorized users? So some of the pipelines we can lock them up, but someone can go change it in the gate and that gets applied to the spinnaker, let's say. So those changes that are going into the gate can be verified, that's from the approved group. So these are all the simple enough checks, but they can all be critical for having a compliance and be part of the spinnaker. And some of these checks, you want them to be part as a hidden pieces in spinnaker, like your plugins that automatically check. And some of them are the process checks that are individual stages in spinnaker. So we look at one of both the examples on how we can use those. Let's see here. So what you're seeing here is some examples of the policy pipelines. These are set to just check for the policies and not more. So in this figure. So the way these systems are set up is there is a OPS server running in the backend and there are some policies that are applied to it. We are getting the data to the OPS server both through the pipeline execution context and also in some cases backend database. So in this one is simple Sorbine's Oxley check. Let's say it's been triggered by somebody and then the manual judgment is done by somebody else. So you can look at the policy as a simple thing here based on the pipeline execution context. This one is a similar one. So here you have the manual judgment done by one person but the trigger is done by somebody else. So you can have simple policies based on pipeline context and in some cases you can have built-in structures where you say in a process you require a automatic verification done in the deployment and if we try to remove that and then go to the production environment it should not allow you to make this policy or process change in the pipeline. So these are more like a plugins that are built-in to front 50 built-in to cloud driver that allow you to do the checks automatically. So the advantage here is that the security group can define these policies and have them as a policy or code and deployed in the backend server and as the developers start using their dev test cycles and then when they promote to production it automatically checks and verifies that the process has been followed or not and then stops them from going forward. So the advantage here is that the policy as code is available if the developers need to see what is the policy that is failing they will be able to see the policy and at the same time it doesn't stop them from doing their dev test cycles and have those pipelines as self-service for them until they start promoting to the production. So that was a quick demo. The process where we are getting the data from database for vulnerability checks or the provenance checks is not included in this one but we can show those demos. That's outside the Spinnaker so we can show those demos in the booth. Any questions? That's all I wanted to show for today. Any questions? I'm sorry? Testing. So how do you load the regos or your policies in the demos what you have demonstrated? So we have GitOps model set up. So the Spinnaker, we have the connection with the Git so anytime the change to policy applied into the Git that gets applied into the OPA server that's running in the Spinnaker environment. So this is happening outside of Spinnaker? Yeah, those policies are applied. And you have a plug-in or whatever that connects Spinnaker to OPA? So those policies also we are applying through the Spinnaker pipeline actually. So you have the rego policies in the Git. There is one admin pipeline with the Spinnaker. Whenever changes happen in that rego system, sorry, in the Git for the rego files it applies into the OPA server. Okay, makes it. Thank you. Thank you everyone.