Resorts World's new CEO is no stranger to the Las Vegas Valley — in fact, he grew up here. The casino industry is what first brought Alex Dixon's grandmother here in the mid-1900s — and it's what's brought him back home now.
"The community could not have been more welcoming and gracious in the proverbial homecoming, and I'm grateful to be back in my hometown," Dixon said. "I pinch myself every day walking in the building."
The Las Vegas native grew up surrounded by casino workers, and took an early interest in the industry.
"When the Mirage was being built, it was about 1989, 1990, we would go down at the base of this tree in my backyard and we would play in the mud and we made a replica of the Mirage and the volcano and the water that was flowing," Dixon said.
Dixon returns home to Las Vegas now for the opportunity of a lifetime, after serving as CEO at Q Casino & Resort in Iowa. His resume also includes stints as president and COO of Circus Circus, an investment banker with Goldman Sachs, among many other roles and accolades.
"Sometimes you have to go out in order to go up. So my wife and our three kids, we've moved quite a bit," Dixon said.
Now, he's back on the boulevard where three generations of his family have made a living.
"My family worked up and down the Strip in so many different roles, so we were the porters, the maids, the cooks," Dixon said. "Really, I was only exposed to the frontline roles in hospitality, so it wasn't until later on in my career where I really sparked that opportunity and interest to serve in a senior-level role."
His grandmother moved here from Louisiana to work as a housekeeper in the 1950s. At the time, the casinos were still segregated, so she couldn't even walk through the front door of the resort she worked at. Later on, Dixon's father went on to work as a barback in local resorts as well.
His grandmother passed early this year, not long after his new role at the helm of Resorts World was announced.
"We laid her to rest less than two weeks ago. But she was positive about Las Vegas, positive about her trajectory, and she said, 'We're all human now,'" he said.
Dixon recognizes he's got an opportunity she didn't have, but that there's still more work to be done.
"I believe firmly that talent is equally distributed, but sometimes opportunity is not," Dixon said.
A 2023 American Gaming Association study titled the"Gaming Industry Workforce Diversity Report"analyzed 2022 data from casinos.
It found that Black employees made up a little more than 20% of service employees, like food and cleaning workers, and about 30% of laborers and helpers, including construction laborers and freight workers.
However, they only represented 5.6% of executives, senior-level officials, and managers in the gaming industry.
"What I want to make sure we do is open up the aperture of who we believe can lead and be involved and engaged," Dixon said.
Tapping into new talent and new audiences is how he plans to right the ship after the company posted its worst financial quarter in two years at the end of 2024.
"There's been a lot of reports about Resorts World running into issues with gaming regulators... maybe concerns about the financial health of the company. How do you plan to rectify those concerns and move this company forward and turn things around?" I asked Dixon.
"That's what we're doing literally right here, is turning that next page," Dixon replied. "We look forward to outlining a positive vision for the future because I think it's important that everyone realizes what we have here at Resorts World Las Vegas. That's an 85-acre campus, that's 3,500 hotel rooms. We have amazing entertainment, amazing food and beverage offerings. But we also have 40 acres of undeveloped land on Las Vegas Boulevard."
He sees a lot of potential in this property and believes leveraging his connection to this community is the key to correcting course and attracting new audiences.
"Once you recognize and are able to value and acknowledge where you come from, you get what is happening now, which is, I'm flooded with messages of people saying, 'I'm rooting for you, I'm rooting for Resorts World Las Vegas,'" he said.
