New Crown Resorts chief executive Ciaran Carruthers speaks about his toughest role yet

Crown Resorts’ chief executive has spoken out about his vision to make Crown Melbourne a “real trendsetter and a gold standard across the industry”.

Crown Melbourne will be significantly upgraded to ensure it becomes a “gold standard” resort after not receiving “a lot of love” in recent years, says the gaming giant’s new boss.

Crown Resorts CEO Ciaran Carruthers will use his experience of managing top casinos in Macau to turn Crown’s Australian businesses into the world’s biggest luxury integrated resorts.

“I need us to be a real trendsetter and a gold standard across the industry, it’s the right thing to do morally and ethically, but I also thing it’s the right thing to do from a business perspective,” he told the Herald Sun.

Speaking at Crown Towers Hotel on his second day in the job, Mr Carruthers admitted the new gig was the biggest challenge of his career given the regulatory action taken against Crown in recent years over multiple gaming breaches.

New Crown Resorts chief executive Ciaran Carruthers on Tuesday. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

“That’s part of the appeal, as absurd as all that may sound,” he said.

“If Crown had have been a shining beacon already, and was a case that you want to come in and just kind of get behind the steering wheel, and kind of cruise around, the challenge wouldn’t have been there,” he said.

“I’ve enjoyed coming into businesses, I enjoy taking them and making them far better than they were in the past, this is just an incredible opportunity for me.”

Irish-born Mr Carruthers started his career as a casino dealer, and worked his way up to hold senior positions at Macau casino resorts such as Waldo, Venetian and Wynn.

Mr Carruthers said the experience of managing a mix of luxurious and big resorts like Wynn and Venetian would serve him well.

“My intention now is to bring those two very detailed experiences together to turn this, Crown generally, into the world’s largest luxury integrated resorts,” he said.

“We’re going to have to commit to a significant spend in terms of, particularly (Melbourne), developing it (because) it hasn’t had a lot of love in the last couple of years.”

However, Mr Carruthers played down the prospect that an ambitious plan to build a new Crown hotel, the $1.75bn One Queensbridge, could be revived after being shelved in 2019.

“Typically, having additional hotel rooms is never necessarily a bad thing, but I really need to have a good understanding of the sensible deployment of our capital to make sure where we’re spending the money is the right thing for the business,” he said.

Mr Carruthers, who was appointed by Crown’s new owner Blackstone, said he wanted to change the organisation’s culture and ensure that staff had the skills and resources to succeed.

“These are the guys at the frontline, they need to have a clear understanding of the direction we want to take the company in, and the role that they play in it,” he said.

Crown Melbourne is Victoria’s biggest employer on a single site, but currently has about 1000 job vacancies.

It supports 3000 businesses who provide services and products.