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Light & Wonder has named Mike Smith Managing Director, Asia, effective October 1, 2026, pulling its Vice President of Global Commercial Strategy for Tables out of a product role and putting him in charge of the supplier's entire regional business from Macau. Smith succeeds Ken Jolly, the long-time Vice President and Managing Director, Asia, who moves into a newly created post as Vice President of Strategic Development, Asia, Inside Asian Gaming reported on August 6.
The reshuffle also promoted Phil Stormonth to Senior Director of Sales for Asia. Smith, who has spent more than 25 years across gaming, commercial strategy and operations at Aristocrat Gaming and IGT before joining Light & Wonder, will relocate to Macau with his family to take up the role.
The timing lines up with where the company's own numbers point. Light & Wonder's table products revenue rose 13% year over year to $62 million in the second quarter of 2026, outpacing gaming machine sales and helping push total Gaming segment revenue up 5% to $554 million, the company reported on August 4. Handing the Asia post to an executive with a tables background puts one of the fastest-growing product lines directly in charge of the region built around Macau's table-heavy casino floors.
Light & Wonder, listed on Nasdaq as LNW, has run its Asia business under a single Managing Director model for years, with Jolly holding that title long enough that Inside Asian Gaming described him as the region's "long-time" chief. Moving him sideways into a strategic development role rather than out of the company signals continuity rather than a break, even as day-to-day leadership changes hands. The company has not disclosed Jolly's new remit beyond the title, and it has not said whether Smith will have a direct successor lined up for his old tables strategy post. Light & Wonder's broader supply-side push, including its Playnetic content partnership with OpenGaming, has leaned on exactly this kind of cross-regional commercial expertise to widen distribution beyond its historic markets.
"Asia represents one of the most dynamic gaming markets in the world and I'm excited to work alongside our customers and teams across the region," Smith said. "My focus will be on building long-term partnerships, delivering consistently for our customers and supporting sustainable growth that creates value for all stakeholders."
Light & Wonder has not set out a specific growth target for the Asia business under Smith, and neither the company nor Inside Asian Gaming's reporting disclosed his compensation or contract length. The appointment lands as land-based suppliers more broadly consolidate regional leadership around fewer, more senior operators, the same pattern behind Scientific Games, the separate lottery business that split from Light & Wonder in 2022 and named its own interim CEO in August. Smith starts on October 1, when Jolly's transition to strategic development formally takes effect alongside his.
Macau gets a tables specialist, not a caretaker
Light & Wonder could have filled the Asia post with an internal caretaker or a Macau-based hire already fluent in the market. Instead it moved someone whose track record is in a single product category now growing faster than the rest of the company's Gaming segment, a choice that reads less like a routine reshuffle and more like a bet on where the region's next growth actually sits.