Wynn Resorts Top Suit Kim Sinatra Walking Away from $13.3 Million Payday, Resigns from Exec VP Job

Posted on: July 6, 2018, 12:23h. 

Last updated on: July 6, 2018, 12:23h.

Casino.org Staff Writer Read More

Expertise: Commercial Gaming.

Key Wynn Resorts executive Kim Sinatra will be out of a job as of July 15. The gaming operator’s general legal counsel — who helped spearhead many of Wynn’s biggest victories prior to the dramatic fall from grace of ex-CEO and chairman Steve Wynn — is reportedly stepping down of her own accord, but she leaves a massive annual $13.3 million total compensation package, based on her 2017 earnings and stocks with the company.

She is reportedly one of the highest-paid casino executives in the Las Vegas gaming industry.

Sinatra, who also serves as executive vice-president and corporate secretary — and sits on the Wynn Resorts Board of Directors — was seen as Steve Wynn’s second-in-command, right behind current CEO Matt Maddox, which may have been her downfall.

Maddox has appeared to be cleaning house and cutting ties with as many negative associations as possible as the company moves forward, and Sinatra is known to have been embroiled in one of the biggest scandals to come to light earlier this year.

Sexual Harassment Scandal Fallout

The announcement was made via a brief, two-sentence filing by Wynn Resorts with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Thursday. The short statement included no specific reason for her departure, and there was no indication as to whether she would retain her other existing positions at Wynn Macau, where she is a director, or Wynn MA, where she is assistant secretary to the division overseeing the Boston Encore casino resort project.

Wynn Resorts has been struggling to deal with the aftermath of allegations against former CEO and chairman Steve Wynn, who has been accused of sexually harassing employees at the company for decades.

Steve Wynn stepped down from his post in February, and four other directors have left the board in the months since then.

Sinatra’s departure could well be related to the turmoil surrounding those accusations. In court filings, former board member Elaine Wynn — ex-wife of Steve Wynn — said that she had told Sinatra in 2009 about a sexual harassment lawsuit that had been settled between her former spouse and a manicurist who worked at one of Wynn’s resorts in 2005.

In a note written on Friday, Jefferies LLC analysts David Katz said that Sinatra’s departure was “reflective of the pressure the company’s management team is facing in the near term from regulators and shareholders.”

Regulators in both Massachusetts and Nevada have investigated the charges levied against Steve Wynn, and the company has tried to distance itself from the former CEO, dropping his name from the casino the gaming giant is building outside of Boston.

Played Key Role in Wynn Expansion

Sinatra — no apparent relation to entertainer Frank Sinatra — joined Wynn in 2004, at a time when the company had just over 300 employees. She became a key figure with the developer, helping Wynn gain a foothold in Macau and win the right to build a casino in the Boston area via the Massachusetts Gaming Commission (MGC).

“A lot of people told us we’d never get that license; that it would go to a local company,” said Sinatra in 2015 to the University of Chicago Law School, which she graduated from in 1985. “When we started in Macau, we were told that we’d never be able to create a great property there. But we had a vision, and we had people who wouldn’t settle for less than the best—the rest is history.”

The MGC is due to release its report into Wynn Resorts before summer’s end. Sinatra has had no comment on her own departure so far.