The board of Fortuna Entertainment has confirmed that Per Widerström has chosen to end his seven-year tenure as Chief Executive of the Central and Eastern European (CEE) betting group.

David Vaněk, General Manager of Fortuna Entertainment’s Czech unit, has been named as the formal successor of Widerström, who will take charge of group leadership on 1 March.

Issuing a personal statement, Widerström thanked Fortuna private equity owner Penta Investments for backing his leadership strategy, that saw the company aggressively expand throughout underpenetrated CEE markets.

“Seven years is indeed a long time and there are so many people I would like to thank for having been with me and FEG during this journey, be it our customers, business partners or other stakeholder” Widerström remarked.

In particular, I would like to thank all the fantastic employees who have made FEG into the great company it is today as well as to thank Penta Investments for their great support and collaboration. Leaving Fortuna at this time feels right, in particular knowing that the company is well poised for further growth as well as being in very good hands with David and the rest of the executive team.”

Widerström was appointed CEO of Fortuna in 2015, charged with undertaking a group-wide transformation of the Czech betting firm overhauling its legacy systems and strategies.

Under Widerström tenure, Fortuna secured market-leading positions in Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Croatia and Romania. Today the betting group employs circa 6,200 employees and operates +3,300 betting shops across regulated CEE jurisdictions.

CEO successor David Vaněk has led Fortuna’s biggest business unit since 2016. Taking over Fortuna leadership Vaněk commented – “I am proud to have been five this opportunity to lead Fortuna in its next phase of development. I am truly excited about the tremendous potential that the company has and I am looking forward to leveraging the group’s extensive know-how to deliver a market-leading value proposition to all our customers”