Melonie Johnson, president and COO of MGM Nationwide Harbor, the on line casino that generated extra gross gaming income (GGR) than some other on line casino outdoors of Las Vegas final yr, reached the highest of her trade in probably the most atypical manner. She believes her previous experiences might assist pave the way in which for extra numerous leaders sooner or later.
MGM Nationwide Harbor president and COO Melonie Johnson. Johnson says the resort she oversees outdoors Washington, DC in Maryland is rather more than a on line casino, and is lifting up the area with good-paying jobs and assets for generational success. (Picture: MGM Resorts Worldwide)
Johnson was born and raised in Louisiana, at a time when that state’s gaming trade consisted of solely riverboat playing. She didn’t take an curiosity within the gaming enterprise till Harrah’s New Orleans secured the primary land-based on line casino license within the late Nineties.
There was no attraction,” Johnson instructed On line casino.org throughout a latest interview about her curiosity within the gaming trade after graduating from New Orleans College with a Bachelor of Science in accounting.
She’s a licensed public accountant and initially labored for an oil and fuel exploration agency. After that firm went bankrupt, her HR division forwarded her a job posting with Caesars Leisure for its new brick-and-mortar on line casino within the Massive Straightforward.
Johnson obtained the decision from Caesars and labored with the on line casino large in finance and operations. She later joined Penn Leisure, on the time Penn Nationwide Gaming, earlier than becoming a member of MGM Resorts in 2015.
Johnson has since led a number of MGM properties, together with the Gold Strike On line casino Resort in Mississippi. Her standing was elevated in 2017 when MGM appointed her to the position of president and chief working officer of MGM Nationwide Harbor, the corporate’s $1.4 billion built-in resort that opened in December 2016.
In Might 2020, MGM shuffled its regional management and moved Johnson to the Borgata in Atlantic Metropolis, traditionally the corporate’s most vital home asset outdoors of Nevada. Johnson made historical past by being the primary Black lady to guide an Atlantic Metropolis on line casino resort. However her trailblazing methods haven’t ended there.
Chief of All Individuals
Johnson returned to MGM Nationwide Harbor in early 2022. Beneath her tenure, the built-in resort outdoors the nation’s capital in Oxon Hill, Md., has emerged as probably the most profitable US on line casino not in Las Vegas.
Being a Black lady, Johnson believes she’s greatest suited to guide the on line casino, which is situated in part of Prince George’s County the place about three in 4 residents are black. The Nationwide Harbor boss says MGM has solely improved the neighborhood since arriving by means of good jobs and a powerful company ladder able to be climbed by these keen.
We come right into a group and we wish to present jobs at livable wages,” Johnson instructed On line casino.org. “That turns into generational, and helps the native financial system and households.”
Johnson added that MGM supplies full-time staff at Nationwide Harbor with the chance to obtain an undergraduate or graduate diploma on-line from the College of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) at no cost.
“That’s what we do. We give again by creating our staff and getting them into greater roles,” Johnson stated.
Proving Floor
Johnson says the gaming trade has made strides in recent times in placing extra numerous folks in C-level positions. However the duty doesn’t solely fall on the casinos and their guardian firms. The MGM exec encourages minorities who want to observe her result in get an schooling, discover a mentor, make connections, foster relationships, and work exhausting.
You’ve obtained to have a very good basis, and which means an schooling to help your objectives. It isn’t straightforward whether or not you’re male or feminine. It requires loads of exhausting work and loads of sacrifice. You’ve obtained to have drive,” Johnson defined.
As for what the longer term holds for MGM Nationwide Harbor, Johnson stated it’s her purpose to depart a long-lasting legacy of MGM serving to to revitalize the area and its surrounding communities.
“That is close to and expensive to my coronary heart — the legacy that we wish to create — and that legacy is sustained job progress, staff improvement, offering a chance for people to cross-train and transfer into completely different elements, and rent the following technology to ensure we’re a very good company citizen and an awesome neighbor. We wish our neighborhood to be higher than once we obtained right here,” Johnson concluded.
