Sport Buff secures industry veteran Zajdel as new partner

Zajdel has worked in the gaming market for more than 15 years, most recently as the group chief operating officer for Fortuna Entertainment Group.

Prior to this, he spent time as chief digital officer at Intralot following over five years with Ladbrokes Coral, serving as director of commercial operations and managing director of digital and omnichannel director.

Zajdel’s other industry roles included key account manager and vice-president of business operations of turnkey services at Playtech, as well as both affiliate manager and programme manager at Partygaming.

“Buff has an innovative product, inspiring founders, a skilled and passionate team and exceptional potential while the benefits to broadcasters, sports and viewers are proven,” Zajdel said. “Their real-time fan engagement experience is genuinely innovative, hugely enhancing engagement and monetisation opportunities for content partners.

“Starting straight away, I look forward to working closely with founders Benn and Jonty, the board of Buff and the whole team, adding my experience from the betting and gaming sector and contributing to product evolution, revenue generation and operational excellence.”

The appointment comes after Buff in August of last year completed its most recent round of seed funding, during which it secured an additional $2.5m in new investment. The business launched in 2019 and has worked with a host of clients in sports broadcasting. 

Buff founder and president Jonty Whitehead added: “We’ve known Nick for a number of years and it’s exciting that we’ll now be working with him inside Buff, as a partner in our leadership team and as an investor, helping to drive the next stage of our growth.

“He’s taken a keen, long-term interest in the development of our products, followed our journey and clearly likes what he’s seen. We also love what he can bring to this rapidly growing business.

“Buff’s expertise across broadcast and digital engagement is well-known and Nick will add further to our commercial and operational capabilities through his extensive experience in building partnerships, understanding of data, ability to create valuable transactions and knowledge of fuelling both B2B and B2C relationships.”