Baha Mar's top lawyer is leaving the company with immediate effect and being replaced by a former top global gaming executive, as the mega-resort approaches its completion deadline.
General Counsel and Senior Vice President Uri Clinton will be relocating with his family back to Las Vegas, Nevada. He is being replaced by Whitney Thier, former executive vice president of legal and government affairs, CG Technologies, L.P. and former general counsel of Fontainebleau Resorts.
Thier will assume the position of general counsel and executive vice president for Baha Mar, thereby also taking on a key role in the company's executive committee in addition to leading the company's legal team.
Joining Baha Mar in 2011, Clinton has overseen Baha Mar's development from a legal perspective, leading the resort through the establishment of hundreds of major legal deals and choppy legal waters. This included navigating the dispute with one of Baha Mar's hotel brand partners, Morgans Hotel Group. The dispute concerned a non-disturbance agreement sought by Morgans from the resort; it culminated earlier this year with Morgans pulling out of its contract with Baha Mar. Morgans was later replaced with SLS Hotels.
In an interview with Guardian Business yesterday, Clinton said it is simply "time to come home".
"I wanted to get home to my family. Honestly, it was my choice and it was a timing thing; (it was) what was right for my family."
Clinton said the resort development had reached a transitional point.
"We got through a lot of critical stuff from the construction side so now they are preparing for operations and so it was a breaking point. Sometimes if you don't put your family first, you never will," he said.
Thier's position at CG Technologies, formerly Cantor Gaming, saw her involved with delivering technological solutions to the worldwide gaming industry, making her seemingly well-suited to guide Baha Mar in its uptake of the more-advanced gaming methods that the proposed Gaming Bill would legalize in The Bahamas. Baha Mar and Atlantis have led the push for the passage of that bill, with Clinton himself vocal on the benefits it would bring to the tourism industry and government revenue collections by enhancing the competitiveness of the gaming in industry in The Bahamas.
The work of CG Technologies has included operating race and sports books and mobile gaming at eight Las Vegas resorts, as well as offering turnkey wagering systems to Baha Mar's major competitor, Atlantis, Paradise Island.
A release from Baha Mar announcing the shift in leadership yesterday highlighted Thier's "extensive experience" in regulatory law, management agreements, gaming technologies, intellectual property, capital financing structures, human resources and resort operations in the United States and internationally.
Thier holds a Juris Doctor degree from Tulane Law School and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Dartmouth College. She will be relocating with her family to Nassau.
Baha Mar recently announced that it will move its "grand opening" to spring 2015, and will offer a "preview opening" in December 2014 only, with invited guests offered the chance to view and stay at the resort.
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