Academics
Gary Loveman
Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President
Harrah's Entertainment
Gary Loveman is Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President of Harrah's Entertainment, Inc. A former associate professor at the Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration. Loveman joined the Fortune 500 company as Chief Operating Officer in 1998 and drew on his extensive background in retail marketing and service-management to develop and implement the gaming industry's most sophisticated and successful loyalty program, Total Rewards. Today, Total Rewards boasts more than 40 million customers.
Since being named CEO in January 2003, Loveman has presided over a period of growth and profitability that culminated in Harrah's June 2005 acquisition of Caesars Entertainment, Inc. In January 2008, Harrah's went private in a $30.7 billion transaction led by private equity firms TPG Capital and Apollo. Loveman has earned the distinction of being recognized as the gaming and lodging industry's best CEO by Institutional Investor magazine for four consecutive years.
Loveman is the past chairman of the American Gaming Association and a director of Coach, Inc. and FedEx Corporation. He also sits on the Board of Trustees at Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston and on the Trust Board at Children's Hospital Boston. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from M.I.T., where he was an Alfred Sloan Doctoral Dissertation Fellow, and a B.A. in economics from Wesleyan University.