Industry Insider
www.parkworld-online.com
Lee Cowie – CEO, accesso
Lee Cowie is the Chief Executive Offi cer at accesso, bringing over 15 years of senior executive experience in digital transformation, operational excellence, and technology-enabled business strategy. Matt Broughton asked the questions…
MB: Lee, can you tell us a bit about your industry background? LC: I've spent my career at the intersection of technology and operationally demanding businesses, and what connects them all is that technology only matters when it works at scale, under pressure, for real people. I started at Aviva during the dot com era, when financial services were being reinvented online in real time. Then Ericsson in the broadcast division, building the infrastructure behind how the world watched television. That was the era streaming arrived and dismantled everything that had looked stable for decades. And then Merlin Entertainments, where I spent seven years and ultimately
became CTO. Merlin is the world's second largest attractions operator Alton Towers, LEGOLAND, SEA LIFE, Madame Tussauds, dozens of brands, tens of millions of guests every year across 28 countries. That's where the
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business of fun became personal for me. My kids can point at a theme park and say 'My Dad helps make that happen.' Beyond everything you strive for professionally, moments like that are the ones that stay with you. What I took from each of those roles is a deep-seated conviction about inflection points. We are in one now.
MB: Can you tell us the real-world difference between your COO role compared to your new CEO position? LC: The honest answer is that the COO role, done properly, is about making the machine run well. You're asking: are we executing? Are the right things happening in the right order? Are we removing the obstacles that stop good people doing good work? It's inward-facing by design. The CEO role is different in a fundamental way. The question changes
SUMMER 2026
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