Hector Fernandez

MAJOR ACHIEVEMENTS

A certified public accountant, he holds an MBA with a concentration in Finance & Marketing from the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business and a BA in Economics with a minor in Accounting and Government from Claremont McKenna College.

Fernandez also has a certification from Yale School of Management for Fostering Inclusion and Diversity which was issued on November 2020.

EMPLOYMENT

A certified public accountant, Fernandez began his career as a Senior Auditor with Deloitte, from May 2000 to August 2003. He then moved to Procter & Gamble, where he worked as a Finance Manager from June 2004 to April 2007. 

Fernandez then transitioned to the world of biotechnology, where he held a variety of finance related positions with Amgen, for nearly seven years, from April 2007 to November 2013.  

He was the Director of Finance and Accounting for the tech company Cydcor from November 2013 to December 2014. Then he moved to the tech company Western Digital for four years, from December 2014 to November 2018.  

Then, finally, he entered the gaming space, in November 2018, when he became CFO of the Americas for Aristocrat. Fernandez has had a meteoric rise within the company. He served as CFO of the Americas for only eight months before he was promoted to President of the Americans & EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa), a position he held for nearly three years, from June 2019 to March 2022.  

Following that, he was then named CEO of Aristocrat.

As of May 2023, Fernandez became a Board Member of the American Gaming Association.

PRODUCTS LAUNCHED

Aristocrat started off as a slot machine manufacturer. Today, Aristocrat runs three business units. One is focused on Real Money Gaming or RMG, which started in 2022. A second unit is focused on digital-based products for cell phones, tablets and personal computers. That unit makes social casino games where you can play with digital coins, not real money.  

Interviews and public speeches

Speaking on the company, Fernandez, said: “Australia is the highest per capita gambler in the world. It was a good place to start because Australians enjoy gaming. The company itself has been around for over 60 years. Over that period of time, it has diversified.” 

Fernandez says the most important thing he's learned as CEO is that: “It’s all about our people. At the end of the day, every single thing we’ve accomplished over the last two years is because of our people and their resilience. Their commitment to the business. Our commitment back to them. And overall, quite frankly, it’s about picking the right people, setting the right expectations, setting the right rewards system, and setting the right accountability metrics.” 

The CEO acknowledges that his background in finance, a bit unusual in the gaming space, gives him a different perspective.  

Fernandez said: “Having a finance background allows me to worry a lot less about the numbers on a day-to-day basis. I think when folks come up through different paths without a finance background, that’s where they have to spend the vast majority of their time because it’s a very hard skillset and it requires a lot of experience. What really helped me is I’ve been able to spend more of my time on our people and our customers and far less time on the P&L, if you will. Because within a 15-minute meeting, I can have a grasp of what’s happening and what the future kind of looks like, based on trends, without having to spend hours of discussions.”