Pros
Having worked within the Zeal Group for about two years now, it's very clear to me that this company has all of the ingredients for success. * Start with aligned leadership at the top (CEO, CTO and CFO) work really well together. Each of them have very different styles, however they complement each other very well, and this provides for balanced decision making. * Great business, with great market potential. This is not a young business by any means. This group of companies has been around for well over ten years. They understand the market well and they have developed businesses that are very successful and this makes them a leader in each product market. * Well-Funded & Solid Financials. We are a public company and have continued to provide the market and investors with strong returns and have a great deal of cash on hand for any opportunities that might arise. * Investment in Technology: With just about 300 collective employees across the group of companies, more than 1/3 is comprised of Technology Professionals. A major benefit of so many platforms, is all of the great technologies we get to leverage. We are empowered to be as innovative as possible and utilize cutting edge tools to make us faster and more agile. On the Technology Infrastructure side, we have a working strategy towards Infrastructure as Code, we use tools like Ansible to automate as many tasks as possible and to empower the development teams to go faster and be empowered. On the development side, we have a continued focus on speed and quality. We are well on our way with continuous delivery, with some products doing code releases multiple times per day. We also get to use some pretty cool tools like (Docker, Kubernetes, Swarm, Rancher to name a few. All in all, we are well on our way in terms of leveraging technologies in the market that provide the most value and purpose. * Diversification: This is accomplished at the business level and across the great people who work for the group of companies. At the business level, we have a diverse portfolio of businesses within the group. Some are mature and well established and some are start-up like and provide opportunities for entrepreneur type minded people to engage and be successful. On the professional side we have something for everyone. In terms of people, we operated internationally and that ensures that we have people working here from all over the world with different backgrounds and different abilities. This group of companies has a true melting pot of talent. * Empowerment and Accountability: Two of our company values are “think like an owner” and “think brave”. These two values embody the culture we have. They really empower the employees to think outside the box and be provocative thinkers to solve problems. However with that empowerment comes accountability as well, so it’s very balanced in that way. All in all, in my twenty year career, this is by far one of the best places I have worked all things taken into consideration.
Cons
* An Opportunity and a Challenge: is the fact we have a very attractive market that we operate within. This is now starting to bring more and more competitors into our market vertical. With all of this competition we have many things going on in parallel and it can be challenging for sure. If you are highly motivated and can handle quick pivots in direction and are able to context switch without major disruption? Then this place is for you… if you are a more methodical person who needs a great deal of time to analyze and test ideas for success before trying them, this might not be the place for you. The pace here can sometimes be stressful, however it’s also very rewarding. * History…: First let me say, history is just that history, however since these companies have grown so much over the last 15+ years, it’s no surprise that we sometimes can’t out run the impact that historical decisions are still having on our technology platforms and our culture at times. While I think we have made amazing strides in the last two years of my time within the group, I think we need to continue to look forward and focus on the future and the opportunity ahead. We can sometimes get burdened by some of the technical debt that has accumulated over the years or the “way things used to be done” and lose our way forward at times. However, again I see this as a con and a major opportunity. * Brand and Market Recognition: I love the “Zeal” name, however it does not directly speak to all of the great things and people that we have. It does not tell the story on the surface of all the great things we do and the positive impact we have on people’s lives. When you look on the surface you see that we work on lotteries… and on the surface, that does not seem so compelling. What our brand does not show is how seriously we take what we do and the focus we have on taking lotteries to the next level. We are now not only doing traditional lotteries and secondary lotteries we are also branching out into Charity Lotteries and Social Lotteries… which are very cool and super impactful on the countries and local regions that we work with. So again, love our name and brand, however I think it’s a bit of a struggle for people to realize all of the great things we do and are capable of just by our name. Certainly, a bit disappointing. * Mixed Cultures: Another positive and a challenge is that we have some very distinct cultures across the main offices we have (Spain, Germany, UK). We certainly try to work together as much as possible and collaborate as much as we can, however you can never really avoid the different cultures we have across the three countries and the sometimes-challenging impact that has on operating the businesses. I would say we are getting much better, however we still have a ways to go and a lot to learn and adapt to make this area more seamless.
