Top legal officer at Strip casino retiring from company

Ellen Whittemore, the highly respected legal face of Wynn Resorts Ltd., will retire in 2025 and leave the company early next year, company officials announced Friday.

Whittemore, who was inducted into the Gaming Hall of Fame last year, will be replaced by her counterpart at Encore Boston Harbor, General Counsel and Executive Vice President Jaqui Krum.

“Ellen Whittemore was, in the truest sense, the right person at the right time to help lead Wynn Resorts through a thicket of litigation and corporate governance changes,” Wynn CEO Craig Billings said in a statement. “Ellen’s track record, including her reputation as a person of the highest integrity, was essential in working with regulators, our board, and employees during a time of transition and change.”

Whittemore was instrumental in stabilizing the company when it was rocked by scandal in 2018 when former Chairman and CEO Steve Wynn was accused of sexual harassment and eventually left the company. Steve Wynn has denied ever harassing anybody.

Whittemore was part of the team that resolved key remaining legal and litigation matters associated with Steve Wynn’s departure, including this month’s $70 million settlement with shareholders who sued the company in a class-action lawsuit over the devaluation of their stock shares in the wake of Steve Wynn’s departure.

“I appreciate her hard work on those issues,” Billings said. “Ellen devoted her efforts to making us a better company; she succeeded, and we are thankful.”

Whittemore, who also serves as secretary for Wynn Resorts Ltd., has led the company’s global legal affairs, philanthropic, community relations, government affairs, and sustainability activities since 2018. She has been instrumental in the company’s efforts to enhance its workplace culture, corporate ethics and governance and she will continue to serve on the Wynn Macau Ltd. board of directors and act as a consultant to the company.

Whittemore, who twice served as chair of the Nevada Resort Association’s board of directors, was applauded by NRA President and CEO Virginia Valentine.

“Few have influenced and advanced the gaming and resort industry as significantly as Ellen Whittemore,” Valentine said in an emailed statement Friday. “For nearly four decades, Ellen has advocated for a strong, transparent and ethical gaming industry. As one of America’s pre-eminent gaming attorneys, she has championed laws and regulations that offered consumers trust in the games, established high standards for licensees and set Nevada’s No. 1 industry on a course to become the envy of the world. As executive vice president and general counsel for Wynn Resorts, Ellen has an impressive list of achievements, including an unwavering commitment to workplace culture, corporate responsibility and governance, positioning Wynn Resorts as one of the nation’s most respected corporations.”

Krum originally joined Wynn Resorts in 2013 to assist with the development of gaming projects in the U.S. and abroad and was a member of the team that won the competitive gaming license bid in the Eastern Massachusetts area for Wynn Resorts. In 2015, she moved from Las Vegas to Boston to become senior vice president and general counsel at Encore Boston Harbor, helping to lead the opening of that resort in 2019.

Before joining Wynn, Krum served as vice president and general counsel of the divisions of MGM Resorts International responsible for gaming and nongaming projects globally. She also held a partner position in the Los Angeles office of Glaser, Weil, Fink, Jacobs, Howard & Shapiro, LLP.

Krum received her law degree from UCLA and a bachelor’s degree in political science, international relations, as well as a bachelor’s degree in cultural anthropology, summa cum laude, from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on X.