Holly O’Brien is VP of Marketing at Golden Nugget Las Vegas, and has been a gaming industry executive for over 20 years, at Harrah's, Hard Rock, Boyd Gaming, and Warner Hospitality. Throughout her career, she has seen the evolution of coin slots to TITOs, legalized sports betting, iGaming, Play For Fun apps, mobile gaming devices, kiosk migration to mobile phones, direct ship gift programs modeled on Amazon, cashless gaming, and recently, AI. Through grass roots PR and social media efforts, she was instrumental in Hard Rock winning its gaming license in Sioux City, IA.

She is also part time faculty at UNLV’s William F. Harrah College of Hospitality and an advisor to Syracuse University’s Advanced Media Management program. In 2020, she was honored as Outstanding Part-Time Faculty Member of the Year at UNLV. She is currently at the dynamic intersection of academia and industry, where she espouses the responsible application of AI.

She has a Bachelors in Magazine Journalism from Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, an MBA from Fordham University in International Marketing and Information Systems, and an Executive Masters in Healthcare Administration from UNLV.