The problem in the market is not a shortage of CEOs. The problem is that they wnt to build their own business

"Last month, one of the co-founders of a project within Fidel Group received a payout of $220,000. This was not an annual bonus, a compensation package, or a reward for meeting KPIs. It was a percentage of the business result he helps build and develop".

For the iGaming market, the number itself is not something unrealistic. The industry has executives with high incomes, large bonuses, and strong contracts. But in this case, what matters is not only the amount. What matters is the model behind it.

In the classic system, a CEO receives a fixed salary and, at best, a bonus for achieving pre-agreed targets. Even if their decisions lead to multiple business growth, their upside is usually limited by the terms of the contract. In a partnership model, the logic is different: if the business grows, so does the income of the person responsible for it.

This is exactly what happened in one of our projects. The co-founder received not a bonus "for good work," but a share of the business result. For us, this is a fundamental difference, because this approach changes not only motivation, but also the leader’s entire attitude toward the project.

When we discuss this story with CEO and Group CEO-level candidates, the conversation almost always quickly moves away from the amount itself and toward more important questions. People ask how the model is structured, what the co-founder’s area of responsibility is, how much freedom they have in decision-making, how the team is formed, and where the line is between the holding company’s support and the leader’s independence.

This clearly shows that the market is changing. Strong CEOs are increasingly less likely to choose an opportunity based only on salary level. More and more, they look at whether they can build a business where their responsibility is matched by their participation in the result.

Strong CEOs Do Exist in the Market

Over the past months, the Fidel Group team has conducted dozens of interviews with CEOs, Group CEOs, and business unit leaders from the iGaming industry. We spoke with people who launched new brands, managed teams of hundreds of employees, were responsible for multimillion-dollar budgets, and developed projects across different markets.

At first glance, it may seem that the market problem is a shortage of such people. Owners often say that strong CEOs are almost impossible to find, especially when it comes to launching a new project, entering a new GEO, or managing several brands at the same time.

Our experience shows a different picture. Strong CEOs do exist in the market, but many of them no longer want to build someone else’s business under standard employment terms.

For many years, the industry worked according to a clear model. An investor or owner provided financing, a platform, infrastructure, and looked for a leader who would take on operational management. This person was expected to think like an entrepreneur: build a team, define the strategy, enter the market, manage the P&L, and be responsible for the financial result.

The problem is that CEOs were expected to behave like owners, while most often being offered the motivation of an employee: a fixed salary, a bonus scheme, KPIs, and limited participation in the long-term value of the business.

A few years ago, this was enough. Today, for the strongest leaders, this format increasingly looks insufficient.

After a Certain Income Level, It Is No Longer Just About Salary

At the early stages of a career, compensation growth really does play a major role. A higher salary, a larger project, a bigger team, and a new title can be strong arguments.

But for experienced CEOs, the logic of choice gradually changes. After a certain income level, the difference between one salary and another stops being the main factor. A leader starts evaluating not only the size of the monthly payment, but also what value they create and whether they participate in that value.

In conversations with strong operational leaders, the same questions come up more and more often: How independently will I be able to make decisions? Will I be able to choose the market and strategy? Will I form the team according to my own vision? Will I have real influence over the P&L? Is there an opportunity to participate in the business result?

At some point, a person who has already launched projects, built teams, and been responsible for profit starts looking at their career differently. They no longer compare one position with another. They compare employment with entrepreneurship.

If a CEO is capable of creating successful companies for other people, a natural question arises: why can’t they build a business where they participate not only as a manager, but also as a partner?

Why Fidel Group Changed Its Approach to Launching New Projects

At Fidel Group, we came to the conclusion that the strongest entrepreneurial leaders cannot be motivated by salary alone. If a person is capable of building a business, they need to be given the opportunity to truly build a business.

That is why some new projects within the holding are being developed as autonomous business units. This is not a classic CEO vacancy where a leader joins an existing structure and works within an already approved strategy. This format is closer to a partnership.

The CEO receives investment for launch, participates in choosing the market, defines the development strategy, forms the team according to their own vision, builds the P&L, and takes responsibility for the result. At the same time, the holding provides capital, infrastructure, expertise, recruitment, and operational support, but does not replace the entrepreneur in making key decisions.

In essence, this is an opportunity to become a co-founder and build your own company within the Fidel Group investment ecosystem.

This approach is not for everyone. Many strong executives are more comfortable working in a classic corporate model, where there is a clear area of responsibility, predictable income, and less entrepreneurial risk. This is a normal and mature choice.

But there is another category of leaders. These are people who already feel constrained in the role of a hired manager, even if the title sounds prestigious and the compensation looks competitive. They are motivated not only by managing a business, but also by the opportunity to create one.

Why the $220,000 Story Matters More Than the Amount Itself

The story of a $220,000 monthly payout matters not because it is a large number. It matters because it clearly demonstrates the difference between bonus logic and partnership logic.

A bonus is usually a reward for meeting a plan. It can be large, but it remains part of a system where the company defines the ceiling of compensation in advance. A leader may exceed expectations, grow the business faster, find a new source of profit, or build a team that radically changes the project’s dynamics, but their participation in the result is still limited by the terms of the contract.

A percentage of the result works differently. It directly connects the leader’s income with how successful the business becomes. In this model, the CEO is no longer just fulfilling KPIs, but thinking like someone building an asset. They look differently at hiring, expenses, product decisions, the market, launch speed, and team quality, because every strong or weak decision affects not only reporting, but also their own result.

That is why the $220,000 payout within one project is not something we see as a random success story. For us, it is an example of how entrepreneurial motivation should work. If a person carries responsibility for the business like an owner, they should have the opportunity to participate in the result like an owner.

This is the main gap between classic CEO hiring and the co-founder model. In the first case, the company buys managerial experience. In the second, it creates conditions in which a strong leader can turn that experience into their own business result.

What This Changes for the CEO Market

The market still often discusses the shortage of CEOs as a hiring problem. Companies look for people with the right experience, compare compensation packages, strengthen bonus schemes, and try to make their offers more attractive.

But for some candidates, the question has already changed. They are not choosing between two employers. They are choosing between the role of a hired executive and the opportunity to become an entrepreneur.

This is why competition for strong CEOs will increasingly move away from salary levels and toward the level of opportunity. Whoever gives a leader real freedom to make decisions, access to capital, the right to build a team, and participation in the result will gain an advantage in the competition for the best operators in the market.

In our view, the market problem is not that strong CEOs no longer exist. They do exist, and many of them continue to carefully consider new opportunities. It is just that more and more of these people do not want the next job title. They want a chance to build their own business.

And if the industry wants to attract entrepreneurial-level leaders, it will have to offer them not only responsibility, but also a corresponding level of participation in the value they create.

Image credit: Fidel Group