As part of a wide leadership overhaul, iGP announced the appointment of former Aspire Global executive Jovana Popovic Canaki as its new Deputy CEO during the summer. After settling into her new role, Popovic Canaki chats to CasinoBeats to outline her aims at iGP and some of the company’s key strategic pillars for the foreseeable future as it seeks to be a leading provider of igaming solutions.
CasinoBeats: Thanks for joining us Jovana. Can you tell us more about the first few months in your role at iGP?
Jovana Popovic Canaki: When the opportunity to join iGP came up, I jumped at the chance to join such a dynamic company, and it has been an exciting first few months in the role.
We’re a company focused on strong performance and building a reputation as the most reliable supplier to work with. We’re keen on building long-term partnerships that are the right fit for both parties. We may not be a start-up, but we’re a young company with very strong foundations to build on. The tech we are offering is of the highest quality, and we have a beautiful dashboard which our partners are very happy with.
I think finding that right blend of enthusiasm, dynamism and quality can be hard to come by in this industry, and that was all part of what made iGP a great choice for me. I really look forward to seeing what we can achieve.
CB: How crucial is the experience you are bringing into the role and how important do you believe it can be in helping iGP excel to the next level?
JPC: I hope that my experience can play its part in taking iGP to the next level, but it’s important to remember there has been a management reshuffle this year, so it’s really a collective task for myself and the other managers.
But there’s no doubt we have all joined a company that is in a strong position already; our main task is to help scale the business. We want to add more and more customers. We may already have almost 100 websites that are live right now, but how do we get to 1,000? The challenge is making that happen while building at scale at the same time, but across the team, I believe we have the right level of experience to achieve that.
CB: What are the key markets you will be focusing on as iGP continues to grow and what strategy are you employing to best tap into these markets?
JPC: The key thing here is that we’re focused more on product markets rather than geographical markets. Our core markets are in Europe, and we’re targeting further growth in Latin America and Asia, but broadly speaking, we’re more focused on how we expand our product offering and branching into new markets that way.
We launched our platform aggregator iGaming Deck in September 2023, and that’s been very successful so far, with more than 20 partners signed up. We also expanded that to sports betting with our partnership with First Sportsbook.
We had a successful launch of our new crypto product at the recent SBC Summit Lisbon, and with three partners already integrating the solution, we are excited to see this expand as we engage with new audiences.
We’re making advances with our various products and enhancing our reputation across the aggregator, sports betting and crypto markets, and improving our offering by expanding our portfolio is more of a target for us than a geographical one. However, that expansion will of course help our progress in those geographical markets as and when we launch in them.
CB: Can you share with us more what you believe sets iGP apart in a challenging market?
JPC: One thing that really stood out to me about iGP is how we don’t tend to make unrealistic statements and promises about tearing up the rulebook and starting again. What we have done is put in place very solid foundations on which to build, and we have a scalable business that is being developed in the right way.
We have made smart decisions about which operators to partner with, and we make sure we are providing the right kind of service to each partner. We don’t go in by saying we will build everything for them from the get go, but instead we will work out how exactly we can tailor our service to that exact partner and focus on building the things we’re good at building.
Taking that approach is what leads us to being able to offer a best-in-class product and we have to continue to cement our position as a trusted, reliable supplier. Last year, we saw an average uptime of 99.97%, and that’s the type of thing we want to be known for.
CB: What steps can you take to unlock the full potential of iGP products and take their ceiling to the next level?
JPC: From my past experience in the industry, it’s about understanding what operators really need. I hope to use my past experience with legacy platform providers and my experience of moving into new markets to really help us focus on providing the best possible service with our current platforms.
We want to work with operators that are moving the needle and have ambitions to grow just like we do. If we keep focusing on what we can do for them, our ceiling will only move higher and higher.
CB: Do you think the igaming industry is guilty of calling replication innovation and how can iGP ensure it truly innovates with its products?
JPC: I think there is truth in that to an extent. For us, we are focused on being reliable and offering solutions that work every time. That is why our uptimes have been so strong, and why iGaming Deck has a request duration time of 13.7 milliseconds, which is exceptionally fast.
In our own way, we see having a scalable, workable product as an innovation. We see too many suppliers who rush into things which don’t work out well, but I think if you build something correctly that works reliably, then that in itself is an innovation.