Scaling up a business is an exciting process, but it also comes with challenges such as adapting to market differences and fostering a healthy company culture. In the fifth part of this iGBA Barcelona 2025 speaker interview series, Rosi Bremec, COO at Game Lounge, shares the affiliate’s proactive and market-specific approach to achieving growth and explores how flexible working could improve productivity.
Rosi Bremec (picture below) is a natural leader. Even as a child, her friends would always come to her for advice and support. Working with people is her gift. Over the years, she has managed business projects across the UK and UAE. Her previous roles range from document control manager in civil engineering to business intelligence lead for a bookkeeping automation platform.
Like many, Bremec has a COVID story. Before the pandemic, she worked in meeting room solutions, a sector hit hard when the world shifted to remote work. After being made redundant, Bremec decided to “take some time off to figure out the next move”. She started mentoring and researching data strategy in leadership, an area she always feels passionate about and will discuss in her speaker session at iGBA Barcelona 2025.
“I created a framework and courses and began giving workshops and seminars on the topic. The idea was to help everyone in a company understand how their role contributes to broader KPIs,” she recalls.
“Often, companies focus on top-level targets like revenue or profit, but they don’t break it down enough for individual teams to see how their work contributes. I think what people really need isn’t just money, but also feeling valued and knowing that they can make an impact.”
Ultimately, one of the seminars caught the attention of an employee at Game Lounge, who invited her to join the company as a consultant for a one-year stint. During that time, she “met with every department, analysed their processes, identified pain points, and guided them in applying data to decision-making”. Bremec’s inputs and expertise were recognised by the CEO, who invited her back in 2024 as the COO to implement her “long list of improvement areas”.
Companies focus on top-level targets like revenue or profit, but they don’t break it down enough for individual teams to see how their work contributes
A tailored approach
A decade ago, Game Lounge was just a single office in Malta run by a two-man team, a stark contrast with its size today, which is nearly 200 employees operating in more than 30 countries. Owning over 130 sites, the affiliate recently acquired Meneer Casino to extend its Dutch footprint and Betting.com for the US market.
“We are still closing our books, but we are looking at a 30% growth in net profit this year, which is phenomenal,” says Bremec. “I think we’ve done a really good job.”
Speaking on the growth initiatives that drove the expansion, Bremec highlights the affiliate’s recent team structural changes, moving away from the “one-size-fits-all” model to adapt a market-specific approach.
“Before, we had one big content team working across all markets. Now, each market has its own team that researches local trends and decides what to focus on. This is because the culture, holidays and how we should approach gambling are all different in different markets,” she says. “It wasn’t easy at the start. But now everyone has embraced it, this niche approach has enhanced our ability to resonate with and grow in specific markets.”
Similar to other affiliates, Bremec sees the “constantly changing Google algorithm updates” as the biggest challenge in 2025 and beyond. However, she believes that Game Lounge is staying ahead of the curve by adopting a proactive approach to future updates.
“We don’t panic anymore though it’s hard not to,” she says. “But now we have built up a very strong SEO team, we are much better at monitoring algorithm changes, analysing their impact and then implementing action plans to mitigate these fluctuations, so I’d say we can have it covered.”
Each market has its own team that researches local trends and decides what to focus on. This is because the culture, holidays and how we should approach gambling are all different in different markets
Culture of trust
Following the pandemic, many companies have ended their brief honeymoon with remote work, mandating employees to return to the office. Bremec, on the other hand, says Game Lounge has “fully embraced remote work” to “empower employees through a culture of autonomy, specialisation and collaboration”. Bremec herself works in a hybrid mode, splitting her time between offices and working from home, where her Australian shepherd Ben pokes her to go for a walk every two hours.
Last summer, Bremec trialled a four-day workweek to see if reducing hours could improve employee well-being and efficiency. The results were overwhelmingly positive.
“The employees felt a lot more recharged as a result of it, and the productivity stayed the same,” she says. “It also helped us to become more efficient, because when you’ve got four days instead of five days, you’re forced to find ways to work smarter, whether it’s reducing the number of meetings, reducing their times or using new tools.”
This year, Bremec is planning to revive the four-day workweek trial, extending its length to three months by adding April to the calendar to collect more productivity data for comparison across the entire year.
When you’ve got four days instead of five days, you’re forced to find ways to work smarter
As part of Game Lounge’s future-proof strategies, Bremec and her team are also working on the recent launch of GLX, an innovation centre to support igaming startups. Its latest product Kiickr, a data-driven affiliate management platform, was also just announced ahead of the shows in Barcelona, making Game Lounge the latest affiliate with its own SaaS network product.
“Before, we used to try things out within the core business and that was always a bit tricky, so we set up GLX, which serves as a separate entity where innovation and experimentation happen,” explains Bremec. “We have a small team working on different products, and when something works, we move it over. This way, we can keep trying innovative ideas in a way that doesn’t impact the core business.”
Rosi Bremec will be speaking at “Growing Pains: Scaling Operations for Accelerating Affiliate Growth” on 21 January 2025 at iGBA Barcelona 2025.