Taking on the role of sales director from next week, George replaces Giles Ivey, who left at the start of October to become Times Media’s first commercial director.
George will lead AOL’s drive for online ad money, which has become a priority after the firm’s internet supply business was auctioned off to The Carphone Warehouse for £370m little more than a year ago. AOL has since invested in revamping its UK portal and rolling out local sites across Europe, while last week saw the launch of a UK mobile portal.
George said: “AOL has made a lot of acquisitions in the past 12 months – most of which are exciting for advertisers. A priority must be to pull these propositions together and make sense of them to advertisers.”
He left GCap in May without a job to go to, but as managing director of national sales for GCap, George led the merger of sales teams at Capital Radio Group and GWR Group in the summer of 2005.
He was subsequently appointed commercial director, where he led the restructure post-merger. George also has a background in print media, having started out on IPC Media’s music title NME, before moving to the Evening Standard and then the Racing Post, from where he joined Capital Radio.
George’s predecessor Ivey became one of a number of senior staff to leave AOL since its transformation from an internet service provider to an ad-supported portal. AOL has bolstered its UK team in the past few months however, with ex-MSN head of sales Michael Steckler joining in July as vice-president of interactive marketing, and swiftly being promoted to managing director.
AOL’s fortunes also took a welcome turn earlier this month when agencies voted its sales team as the best to deal with in the digital sector.
Be the first to comment