Career Advice for Women in Leadership | Next Level Careers

Laura De La Cruz didn't set out to run a casino. She answered phones.

That's where it started: a front desk at a hotel-casino property, taking calls, figuring things out. Decades later, she's the Assistant General Manager of Palms Casino Resort, one of Las Vegas's most recognized off-strip properties. The path between those two points wasn't a straight line. There were pivots into marketing, years building loyalty programs across more than a dozen Boyd Gaming properties, and a career that kept evolving in directions she never fully mapped out in advance.

Casino leadership isn't an industry that hands women a playbook. De La Cruz figured it out by staying curious, proving her value, and building relationships in rooms where she wasn't always expected to be. What she learned along the way is practical, honest, and worth paying attention to, whether you're just getting started or you're trying to make the leap into something bigger.

Get Curious About Every Corner of the Business

One of the things that sets casino careers apart is how much ground there is to cover. Operations, marketing, finance, guest experience, gaming compliance, food and beverage, entertainment. Most people pick a lane early and stay in it. De La Cruz didn't.

She started on the hospitality side, moved into marketing, spent years in loyalty program development, and eventually came back to operations at the property level. None of those moves was accidental. She was drawn to what she didn't yet understand, and that breadth became one of her biggest advantages. "As I got a little bit more familiar with the [casino] industry, it became very infectious," she said. "Every day is different. I love that. I feel that at the end of the day, I added value and I learned something new."

For women building careers in gaming, this kind of intellectual curiosity is a real differentiator. Leaders who understand multiple parts of the business bring more to the table, earn trust faster, and are harder to overlook when bigger roles open up. You don't have to be an expert in everything. You do have to be willing to learn.

Learn to Be the Person Who Bridges the Room

Early in her career, De La Cruz was brought into a special projects role at Harrah's, working hand-in-hand with IT to build out a standardized customer database as the company expanded. She leaned into a translator role: taking what the business actually needed and communicating it in a way the technical team could act on. "I was collaborative. I was listening. I was engaging, and I was able to summarize what the business needs were and represent that back in a manner that would drive us moving forward."

That skill of moving fluidly between departments, between the floor and the boardroom, between frontline workers and senior leadership, became a thread running through her entire career. It's not a skill that shows up on most job descriptions, but it's one of the most valuable things you can develop.

The way to build it? Go to the floor. Understand what the front desk agent is actually dealing with. Sit with a casino host for a shift. Ask questions until you can speak to both sides of a problem, and then be the one who articulates a path forward. De La Cruz calls it rolling up her sleeves. "I rolled up my sleeves to really understand what the role was. What was the goal we were trying to accomplish now?"

Leaders buy in when your recommendations are grounded in context and enhanced by your conviction.

You Will Have to Prove Yourself. Do It With Intent.

Gaming at the executive level has historically skewed male. De La Cruz doesn't sugarcoat that. Early in her career, she felt the weight of having to work harder just to be taken seriously. "I always had to prove myself through what the intent was," she said.

What she means is that being good at your job wasn't always enough. She had to be visible about why she was doing what she was doing, what she was trying to accomplish, and whose interests she was serving. That clarity of intent became her currency. She'll also tell you that some of her most important early mentors were men who took her seriously and helped her understand how to navigate those dynamics. Finding the right people, regardless of gender, matters more than most people give it credit for. And speaking up? Non-negotiable.

"One that's going to either sink you or make you is having that ability to voice your opinion while being assertive. But always keeping in mind what's best for the business, the customer, and the team members." Assertive, grounded, and clear on the purpose behind your position. That combination is harder to dismiss than confidence alone.

Stop Waiting to Feel Ready

Imposter syndrome comes up for many when they start digging into what can hold them back from stepping into leadership roles. De La Cruz's take on it is raw and honest.

Be yourself. 

Not a more polished version of yourself. Not a version that's watched how the men in the room operate and tried to mirror it back. Just you, grounded in what you actually know and what you genuinely care about. That sounds simple, and it is. It's also the thing most people struggle with most when they step into bigger roles, because bigger roles come with more visibility and more room to feel like you don't belong.

The antidote, in her experience, isn't confidence that arrives one day fully formed. It's the accumulation of moments where you showed up, did the work, and found out you could handle it. That's what confidence actually is.

The Company You Choose Is Part of the Strategy

De La Cruz is a mother and a grandmother. She's been doing this work for decades, and she's clear-eyed about what that journey actually looked like.

"There were times, because I was a female, that I had to work twice as hard. But I will tell you, to anybody coming up [in their career]: family is first and foremost. And if it's the right company, like it is for me with Palms right now, they will get it. They will understand it, and they will be fully supportive of it."

Where you work shapes what's possible. A company that supports working parents, that invests in developing its people, that sees ambition and family as compatible rather than competing, that's not a nice-to-have. For women who want to build long careers and still have a full life outside of work, it's part of the strategy.

The industry has made progress. Organizations like Global Gaming Women are creating real community and real pathways. More women are sitting at executive tables. But De La Cruz is also honest that the environment you're in day-to-day still matters enormously. Evaluate it accordingly.

Where to Start

If you're early in your career or thinking about making a move into casino leadership, De La Cruz has a few practical starting points.

• Get connected to Global Gaming Women and show up to industry events like G2E and IGA. Treat the seminars like coursework.
• Find a mentor. It doesn't have to be a woman. Find someone who will be straight with you and help you understand how to navigate the rooms you want to be in.
• Use what your company offers. Ask for an executive coach. Ask about development programs. "It's not a sign of weakness," she says. "It's a sign you want to grow."
• Be vocal and be present. Get on the floor, learn the business from every angle, and make sure the people around you know what you stand for.

Gaming is one of the few industries where you can genuinely start at the bottom and build all the way to the top. De La Cruz is living proof of that. However, the path up isn't passive. It takes curiosity, intention, and the willingness to show up in rooms in which you have to earn your seat.

She started by answering phones. Everything she built came from what she chose to do next.