News International confirms commercial restructure

Three new roles being created in News International Commercial are director of advertising strategy, commercial director and director of business services.

Those in the pool for contention and eligible to apply for the roles are current trading director Dominic Carter; director of commercial strategy, Neil Jones; business intelligence director, Claire Myerscough; creative solutions director, Abba Newberry; sales support director, Patricia Kill; digital trading director Alex Hole, and sales innovation director, David German.

Today's announcement restarts a restructure that was due to be announced in the summer but was placed on hold following the unfolding hacking scandal that engulfed the now defunct News of the World.   

In addition to the three permanent directors, there will also be three ‘transition’ directors roles, which will be kept on at News international for between "six and 24 months". These include a director of digital integration, a director of business intelligence and a director of process transformation.

The director of advertising strategy role will be "focused on looking to proactively and strategically maximise all media share through market analysis, research and robust media planning", according to News International.

The commercial director role will, "consolidate selling and trading under one role" and will be responsible, "for selling to agencies and clients the value of partnering with News International", while the responsibility of the director of business services will be, "to evolve services to support the new News International commercial model and implement new technologies to support client services."

All the directors have today been invited to apply for the new roles. Interviews will take place on 12 September and it is expected that the successful applicants will be announced on the afternoon of 13 September.

Hayes told Media Week: "NI’s business is transforming itself into a multi-platform media company and as such, we need to innovate our commercial trading model to be smarter, more efficient and more profitable amidst competition and constant change.

"The NI Commercial transition sets us up to be an industry-leading team with a strategic long-term outlook dedicated to creating profitable and enduring relationships between our audience and our advertisers."

The commercial managing director labelled the restructure the "beginning of creating a new, dynamic, industry-leading commercial team that is able to take on the unique challenges of the modern media world".

Earlier today, News International announced plans to axe 110 jobs across its 3,000 workforce over the next 12 months.

This article was first published on mediaweek.co.uk