Steve Kirk.
Managing Consultant
I have a career spanning over 18 years recruitment experience, and I am now entering my 10th year with Pentasia.
As the longest serving member of our recruitment teams globally, I have brought a wealth of industry knowledge to all facets of our customers businesses across iGaming, Sports Betting, Casino/Slots and Lottery.
I support our Executive Search Business, delivering C-Suite and Head of positions globally whilst also managing our Game Development teams, focused on Senior Game Design, Mathematical and Art positions for Studios and Providers across Europe.
Outside of work, I am a proud father of 2 boys, and enjoy travelling with family and friends as much as I can.
Latest Steve Kirk Jobs.
Bid Director - Lottery
Posted 8 days ago- Attractive
The Bid Director will be responsible for leading and managing the end-to-end bid process, from initial opportunity assessment to contract award. This includes developing winning bid strategies, creating comprehensive bid documents, and ensuring compliance with client requirements, and the delivery of high-quality, compliant, and persuasive proposals. The role would also involve managing client relationships, leading cross-functional teams, analyzing market trends, providing reports on bid activity, all while working with internal stakeholders and external suppliers. Key Responsibilities: Bid Management: Monitoring and prioritizing all bid opportunities Leading and managing the entire bid process, from opportunity identification and qualification to contract award. Developing and implementing bid strategies that align with company goals and client needs. Managing cross-functional bid teams, ensuring effective collaboration and communication. Ensuring compliance with client requirements and internal policies, including all RFPs and tender requirements. Bid Development: Creating compelling, detailed, costed and persuasive bid proposals that highlight our value proposition, by understanding and resolving complex technical, strategic and business issues. Developing high-quality competitive bid content by gathering information from various sources: Collaborate with internal stakeholders (business development, sales, technical, marketing, product, finance, legal, project management/delivery etc.) to ensure bids are accurate and meet client needs. Identify and manage potential suppliers and subcontractors. Conducting market research and competitive analysis to identify potential opportunities and develop winning strategies. Client Relationship Management: Serving as the primary point of contact for client inquiries and facilitating communication throughout the bid process. Building and maintaining strong relationships with clients, potential partners and internal stakeholders. Performance Analysis and Reporting: Tracking bid outcomes and analyzing success rates to identify areas for improvement. Utilize data and insights to continuously improve bid quality and processes. Preparing regular reports and presentations for senior management, highlighting key metrics and lessons learned. Other Responsibilities: Contributing to the development and improvement of bid governance, processes and procedures. Developing a systemic capability to respond to RFPs, like a playbook (including building and maintaining accurate documentation and data base related to bid submissions up to date) Providing guidance and mentorship to junior bid team members. Ensuring compliance with internal policies, industry regulations, and client requirements. May lead presentations and negotiations with clients. Required Skills and Experience: Extensive experience in bid management, in the lottery industry, in Europe and/or US markets Strong understanding of the bid process, including bid development, strategy, and negotiation. Excellent bid writing, editing, and proofreading skills. Excellent communication, interpersonal, and leadership skills. Ability to work effectively in a cross-functional team environment, and with internal and external teams to achieve common goals Strong business acumen Strong analytical and problem-solving skills. Ability to manage multiple tasks, prioritize effectively under pressure and meet tight deadlines. Detailed knowledge of lottery products and services, all channels in the industry
Bid Director
Posted 10 days ago- Attractive
The Bid Director will be responsible for leading and managing the end-to-end bid process, from initial opportunity assessment to contract award. This includes developing winning bid strategies, creating comprehensive bid documents, and ensuring compliance with client requirements, and the delivery of high-quality, compliant, and persuasive proposals. The role would also involve managing client relationships, leading cross-functional teams, analyzing market trends, providing reports on bid activity, all while working with internal stakeholders and external suppliers. Key Responsibilities: Bid Management: Monitoring and prioritizing all bid opportunities Leading and managing the entire bid process, from opportunity identification and qualification to contract award. Developing and implementing bid strategies that align with company goals and client needs. Managing cross-functional bid teams, ensuring effective collaboration and communication. Ensuring compliance with client requirements and internal policies, including all RFPs and tender requirements. Bid Development: Creating compelling, detailed, costed and persuasive bid proposals that highlight our value proposition, by understanding and resolving complex technical, strategic and business issues. Developing high-quality competitive bid content by gathering information from various sources: Collaborate with internal stakeholders (business development, sales, technical, marketing, product, finance, legal, project management/delivery etc.) to ensure bids are accurate and meet client needs. Identify and manage potential suppliers and subcontractors. Conducting market research and competitive analysis to identify potential opportunities and develop winning strategies. Client Relationship Management: Serving as the primary point of contact for client inquiries and facilitating communication throughout the bid process. Building and maintaining strong relationships with clients, potential partners and internal stakeholders. Performance Analysis and Reporting: Tracking bid outcomes and analyzing success rates to identify areas for improvement. Utilize data and insights to continuously improve bid quality and processes. Preparing regular reports and presentations for senior management, highlighting key metrics and lessons learned. Other Responsibilities: Contributing to the development and improvement of bid governance, processes and procedures. Developing a systemic capability to respond to RFPs, like a playbook (including building and maintaining accurate documentation and data base related to bid submissions up to date) Providing guidance and mentorship to junior bid team members. Ensuring compliance with internal policies, industry regulations, and client requirements. May lead presentations and negotiations with clients. Required Skills and Experience: Extensive experience in bid management, in the lottery industry, in Europe and/or US markets Strong understanding of the bid process, including bid development, strategy, and negotiation. Excellent bid writing, editing, and proofreading skills. Excellent communication, interpersonal, and leadership skills. Ability to work effectively in a cross-functional team environment, and with internal and external teams to achieve common goals Strong business acumen Strong analytical and problem-solving skills. Ability to manage multiple tasks, prioritize effectively under pressure and meet tight deadlines. Detailed knowledge of lottery products and services, all channels in the industry
Head of Game Design / Snr Slots Mathematician
Posted 21 days ago- South Australia
- Attractive & competitive package
In this role you will work as part of the math's team to create new math's for the Pragmatic games estate. You will create math profiles for our games. In addition, you will also have the opportunity to come up with your own game concepts. In this role you will be leading an eventual small team of mathematicians to create new math's for the Pragmatic games estate. As a Head of Game Design it is your responsibility to come up with market leading game designs that are as exciting as they are fresh. You must be able to work with a team and consult and coach on any math problems they might have on the games . We want someone that is not afraid to think outside of the box regarding game design. What you will be doing: Create exciting game design and math models for the slot market Creates own programming tool to verify the math models and analyse all game play characteristics Responsible for all math model calculations for assigned games, including base game/free games, bonus features, and all RTPS, hit rates, standard deviations, and other metrics as needed Ability to work with a math team to develop new math profiles Consulting and coaching math team on their math and game designs Present slot game ideas to VP of slot design Building prototypes & working with proto team to build them Producing detailed math profile documents Matching with server developers What we need from you: Strong math background. Experience with programming- the ability to run simulations on own math logic Strong written and verbal communication skills. Experience in iGaming Fluency in English is a must Ability to create prototypes/use programming language to aid math design Being in touch with the slot world is ideal, knowing what works and what doesn’t work – and anything in between.
Lead Game Designer / Creative Game Producer
Posted 29 days ago- Attractive
We are seeking a Lead Game Designer to own the end-to-end development of online casino games — from concept to delivery. This hybrid role demands both creative leadership and production discipline. You will act as the vision holder for your games and lead internal teams in turning that vision into successful products, ensuring strategic alignment with our clients. Key Responsibilities Game Design & Creative Leadership Create and maintain Game Design Documents (GDDs), Art & Sound Specs, and other production documentation. Define engaging game mechanics and features aligned with customer requirements and market trends. Translate customer and internal feedback into actionable game ideas and roadmap features. Ensure the creative vision is clearly communicated and understood across disciplines (Art, Development, Audio). Production & Project Management Serve as the primary point of contact between internal teams and external stakeholders for your titles. Run milestone meetings, manage production schedules, and mitigate risks proactively. Review builds, organize playtests, and ensure consistent iteration toward final quality. Client & Stakeholder Management Manage client requirements and feedback, translating them into achievable development milestones. Work directly with operators and partners to pitch ideas, refine direction, and support delivery. Prioritize features and content in collaboration with Product, Sales, and Marketing to ensure commercial viability. Team Leadership Lead and mentor a small team of producers, offering guidance on project execution, quality, and communication. Foster collaboration across disciplines and ensure team members are empowered to succeed. Key Qualifications 3–5 years of experience in game design and/or production within the casino, mobile, or casual gaming space. Proven experience managing cross-functional teams including Art, Development, Audio, QA, and Localization. Track record of leading multiple successful game launches in a producer or design lead role. Experience managing and mentoring a small team of producers or associate producers. Demonstrable ability to create and maintain high-quality GDDs and production documentation. Strong client-facing communication skills, including roadmap presentation and feature negotiation. Familiarity with regulatory and compliance requirements in online gaming is a plus. Ability to read, understand and provide feedback on math models and PAR sheets. What We’re Looking For Strategic Thinking: Ability to analyze market needs and propose data-informed game concepts. Product Quality Ownership: Relentless focus on delivering polished, high-quality gaming experiences. Industry Credibility: Professional presence and confidence when dealing with clients and partners; known for delivering results.
Payment Operations Analyst
Posted 49 days ago- Attractive
We are seeking a detail-oriented Payment Operations Analyst to support the optimization and monitoring of both our external (PIQ Payment IQ) and internal payment systems. The focus will remain on PIQ, but the analyst will play an important role in supporting the evolution of our system through feedback, testing, and enhancement proposals. The role is analytical and operational — not involving direct payment processing — and is central to improving fraud detection, performance, and automation. Key Responsibilities: Configure and monitor settings in PIQ Payment IQ and support the setup of configurations in our internal system. Analyze transactional data, identify trends, and recommend optimizations to routing logic, fraud rules, and provider setups. Contribute to the development of our internal system by offering operational insights, reporting needs, and UX suggestions to development teams. Track fraud patterns, perform root cause analysis, and recommend preventive measures across platforms. Produce regular and ad hoc reports covering KPIs, fraud rates, approval performance, and operational metrics. Collaborate with PSPs and internal teams to troubleshoot issues and improve integration quality. Assist in the testing and rollout of new payment features and routing logic in both systems. Work with Finance, Fraud, Risk, and CS teams to improve overall payment efficiency and customer experience. Requirements: At least 3 years of experience in payments or payment analytics, preferably within iGaming. Practical knowledge of Payment IQ and experience working with or supporting the development of internal tools. Strong analytical mindset with solid Excel/reporting capabilities and attention to detail. Familiarity with fraud signals, routing mechanics, and PSP performance metrics. A collaborative and proactive communicator, comfortable interfacing with both technical and operational teams. Based in or willing to relocate to Malta.
Payment Operations Manager
Posted 49 days ago- Attractive
We are seeking a strategic and technically proficient Payment Operations Manager to lead and optimize our payment operations. The successful candidate will be responsible for configuring, monitoring, and enhancing the performance of both third-party (PIQ Payment IQ) and internal payment systems. While the role does not involve manual payment processing, it is critical to ensuring robust payment performance, fraud reporting, compliance support, and system enhancement. Key Responsibilities: Manage and continuously improve the internal and external platforms, focusing on routing rules, settings, and reporting. Support and advise the development of our internal payment system, offering ideas for improvement, user experience, routing, fraud detection, and reporting features. Analyze transaction performance, track fraud trends, and proactively troubleshoot anomalies across all platforms and PSPs. Collaborate with development teams to influence the roadmap of our internal system, ensuring operational needs are translated into scalable features. Monitor PSP approval rates, decline reasons, and latency issues, and implement changes to optimize performance. Generate and present high-quality reports and dashboards for cross-functional and executive stakeholders. Ensure all systems and workflows align with regulatory and compliance requirements across jurisdictions. Serve as the escalation point for payment-related technical issues and provider performance concerns. Lead and mentor the Payment Operations Analyst, ensuring effective task management, skills development, and operational coverage. Requirements: 5+ years in a payments role, including multi-jurisdictional exposure. Ideally hands-on experience with PIQ Payment IQ and strong understanding of orchestration systems. Experience supporting or helping shape the development of internal systems or tools. Highly analytical and data-driven with strong Excel, reporting, and troubleshooting skills. Effective communicator with proven stakeholder and vendor management ability. Based in or willing to relocate to Malta.
Head of Sportsbook
Posted 69 days ago- Manila, Asia
- Attractive & competitive package
Exciting opportunity to own and manage the sportsbook vertical, including event coverage, content curation, user experience, and promotional campaigns. Responsibilities Develop and implement a strategic plan to grow the sportsbook offering across key markets, with a focus on player behaviour, emerging sports trends, and local preferences. Ensure comprehensive and timely coverage of global and regional sporting events (e.g., EPL, NBA, UFC, PBA, FIBA, etc.). Manage the sportsbook calendar and coordinate with traders to optimize content scheduling. Work with internal or third-party trading teams to define and manage odds models, betting markets, and betting limits. Analyse betting margins and implement strategies to ensure competitive yet profitable offerings. Monitor odds accuracy, availability, and suspensions across events to reduce player complaints and maximize uptime. Analyse betting patterns, player preferences, and market demand to guide content and campaign strategies. Collaborate with CRM and marketing teams to deliver sportsbook-specific bonuses, promotions, and loyalty campaigns. Work closely with Product, CRM, BI, VIP, Risk, and Compliance teams to ensure a seamless, compliant, and player-friendly experience. Monitor betting behaviour to identify potential fraud, abuse, or arbitrage in coordination with the risk and fraud team. Ensure sportsbook offerings and promotions comply with local laws and regulatory. Define, track, and report on sportsbook KPIs, including GGR, turnover, margin, bet count, active users, and campaign ROI. Deliver weekly and monthly performance reviews and forecasting reports to management. Requirements 5+ years in sportsbook operations, sports trading, or sports product management within iGaming. Deep understanding of the global and regional sports betting landscape, odds, markets, and betting behaviour. Strong command of sportsbook KPIs, player behaviour analytics, odds modelling, and ROI analysis. Excellent coordination and communication skills across technical and commercial teams. Proficiency in sportsbook back-office platforms, CMS, BI dashboards (e.g., Tableau, Power BI), and Excel.
Senior Art Director - SLOTS - USA
Posted 143 days ago- United States
- Attractive & competitive package
Outstanding opportunity to join this award-winning team of Slots game creators who are looking to grow so that we can release even more transformative experiences to the millions of players that enjoy our games every day. Experienced industry veterans will understand that producing blockbuster titles is no easy feat, requiring an obsessive eye for every detail including the game design, mathematics, and artwork. That’s where you would come in: we’re looking for a superstar art and design leader who can work with our team to take game concepts, breathe life into them, and help turn them into hits. If you’re able to expertly communicate your vision, deliver incredible art yourself, inspire top design personnel, and work tireless to build games in service of entertaining our players, you’ll fit right in. Reporting to the VP of Game Production and working closely with everyone involved in building a game, this is a hands-on role that can be on the ground with the team or based remotely. Core Responsibilities Work closely with the game production team to help define, conceptualise and iterate new game visions. This will include participating in design reviews, team meetings, and brainstorming sessions. Lead new game creative from start to finish. This will be particularly heavy on the conceptual development at the beginning. Present concepts clearly, concisely, and effectively to the team and to stakeholders. Execute upon concepts and established visions for games. This means both creating art assets yourself (particularly when communicating what you expect for output from teams) and coordinating with teams, agencies, consultants, firms, and designers to deliver assets for development. Prepare tidy, thoughtful, and well-structured source files for development and supervise their implementation to ensure they are delivered according to the original vision. Provide quality control over design outputs and production. Where possible, take new design solutions and bring them to life by creating prototypes. Those will be used to get a sense of how they will function in practice, help solve animation and interaction sequences and foster critical fine-tuning feedback from stakeholders. While static images give a great impression of the functionality, seeing it in action is even more valuable. Oversee deliverables, timelines and budgets. Be the point of contact for liaising with external suppliers. Assist the teams with questions about the designs and to help guide the specifications. Adjust designs based on feedback from stakeholders or from broader technical challenges, constraints, or limitations that may arise during the production process. Feedback on other proposed designs and requirements within the team, particularly in cases where it may affect the dependencies and connected interaction design. Document new controls and designs so that other team members (or other teams) clearly understand the design decisions and how to use, implement, or maintain the outputs. Update design systems and common controls where necessary to ensure that iterations are then fully documented, updated, and usable by the rest of the team. Strategic Responsibilities Define and evolve our game design language to weave consistence and game familiarity throughout our universe of titles while still giving us enough flexibility to try new things. Discover how to incorporate elements of our branding into games or how our design language can become an intrinsic element of our corporate branding strategy. Thoughtfully consider how games fit into the broader design language of the business and how an individual game’s design language may extend to sequels or series, particularly premier titles. Develop creative programs and design concepts that meet the business objectives of the organization and that advance our brand and proposition strategy. Understand what our competitors are doing differently and to help us identify elements that we may want to incorporate. Work to streamline our game design pipeline to reliably deliver high-quality, pixel-perfect assets at pace. Evaluate technologies that can help augment our design pipelines. Keep an eye on broader design trends and tools, especially within the gaming and entertainment spaces, to ensure that we are keeping up with best design practices and exceeding customer expectations. Provide thoughtful, considered feedback on the overall roadmap and design strategy. Education, Qualifications, and Background You must have worked in an art direction capacity for designing real money gaming slots. The more projects you can demonstrate, the better. You must have led art projects that have shipped AAA products for one or more major land-based slot manufacturers. Be prepared to discuss your roles in those projects and how you set the vision and shaped the final product. Key Experience Areas You must have a clear understanding and respect for our players, ideally knowing what they like, what they’re looking for, and how to give them more of the things they love. This should come from experience having developed a substantial body of work. You must be able to design. Although this is a leadership role that will be working with orchestrating different teams, you will also need to produce visual assets and designs that directly illustrate your vision and expected execution for products. You must be completely proficient with popular vector and bitmap design tools. You must be extremely comfortable working with game designers and mathematicians to visually develop conceptual mechanics and present them to players in a way that’s simple and easy to grasp. You must know how to hire, grow, and lead a team of exceptional design talent. Leadership is expected to be predominantly design-led rather than management-led. You must be familiar with hierarchical game structures and communicating excitement, anticipation, and relative value in a way that is easily understood by the player. You must be able to work with a wide variety of art styles, even if they are not your personal design style or preference. This is particularly important when working with valuable existing intellectual property that needs to stay true to the original. You must understand technical constraints and creatively work around them when necessary. Although our approach is to design the dream and figure out how to deliver it, there may be practical considerations that you should intrinsically understand. You should ideally be comfortable with prototyping more complex concepts to curb development time and reduce the risk of delivering designs that aren’t practical. Having the ability to delve into graphic design, motion graphics, animation, or video outside of product and UI design is a plus. Ideally you will have some technical background or knowledge. Understanding how developers build the interfaces and the challenges they face is tremendously valuable when designing games. You should: Stating the obvious: love slot games – to succeed in this role, you need a passion and respect for the product you’re building. Take ownership of your creative deliveries as if they were for your own company. This includes exuding a startup mentality where you are working to constantly ship great product. Be exceptionally well-organised and structured with your time. There are going to be a lot of moving parts to this role so you must bring method and structure to your approach, particularly when you consider that we have many game titles in parallel pipelines. Be extremely creative and thrive in an ultra-creative environment – your role is to bring life to games and rally teams around that vision. Adapt quickly to different teams, different types of teams (internal versus external), working styles, and art styles. Be ready to adopt a mobile-first mentality and understand how to design games for small form-factor designs. Be obsessed with details. Creating amazing player experiences means every single detail matters. In a such a highly competitive industry, all these small aspects can stack up to make all the difference. Bring an infectious design mentality that the team can adopt and easily work with. Take critical feedback well. A lot of different stakeholders are going to be looking at the designs and prototypes and providing their input – this is a critical part of the collaboration process. Knowing how to accept and act on feedback is vital to this role. Discuss constructively and diplomatically. Having many different views means that we won’t always agree – but we need to focus on collaborating solutions that deliver optimal outcomes for our customers. You will also be providing feedback to different individuals and teams to take designs forward and that needs to be done well to keep things moving. Be an expert communicator both visually and verbally. Your designs and prototypes should nearly speak for themselves; however, you still need to be able to walk different audiences through them in detail. For example, explaining them to stakeholders versus relaying the details to development. Exude transparency, openness, and objectivity. We’re here to build great games and need to collaborate effectively. Thrive in a fast-paced environment and be able to work to very tight deadlines. We work to visualise things quickly and make decisions to push the business forward. Speak English natively or be completely fluent.