Cathy Ma has joined Bauer Media as Audience Development Director alongside a number of senior promotions from within the business.
This sees Bauer forge ahead with an ambitious plan to further accelerate digital growth, and leverage its unique and powerful range of radio, magazine media, connected TV, events and digital brands to offer scaled and premium targeting opportunities for commercial partners, says the company.
Bauer Media says it has achieved significant growth in streamed audio listening with a 30% increase across the Bauer City Network of local radio station brands and a 75% increase in ‘logged in’ listening to stations like Absolute Radio – which provides data to provide premium audio targeted commercial opportunities. Bauer has also grown unique users across its lifestyle brands with Grazia up 6% and The Debrief up 193% which enables it to make better informed decisions about the content created and curated for these brands.
Cathy Ma will focus on content strategies to grow digital audiences and will work alongside senior leaders in search and social. Bauer’s Hannah Rouch, Alice Farmiloe and Ali Wilkinson all take up new senior editorial roles.
Prior to Bauer Media, Cathy held roles in editorial, social content, product management and digital brand consulting at Yahoo!, Time Inc and blue chip digital businesses as well as for The Telegraph Media Group, where she engineered double-digit audience growth.
Hannah Rouch, a celebrated digital business founder, brings a wealth of digital, content strategy, development and commercial expertise to a new role which sees her promoted to Digital Director, Bauer Xcel Lifestyle. This sees her take full editorial responsibility for the digital Lifestyle Portfolio which includes entertainment titles such as Empire and women's titles including Grazia, heat and Closer.
Alice Farmiloe is promoted to Editor-in-Chief, Lifestyle, with a focus on editorial and social media development across Bauer’s lifestyle brands Grazia, heat and Closer. Alice joined Bauer Xcel from Leo Burnett, where she was the Editorial Director, responsible for devising and implementing the editorial strategy across a wide range of clients including The Outtnet, ghd, Mercedes-Benz and Max Factor.
Ali Wilkinson is promoted to Head of Content, Radio and is responsible for driving growth of connected audio listening through content strategies and creation. Ali brings experience in digital activation and design from previous roles at Ministry of Sound and Harlequin, managing and designing campaigns for compilations, social media and building authors audiences.
Speaking about the appointments, Sam Jones Managing Director Bauer Xcel said, “We are seeking world-class talent as we unlock a new level of digital performance and targeting opportunities for commercial partners. Cathy Ma, Hannah Rouch, Alice Farmiloe and Ali Wilkinson are celebrated digital talent and bring with them a wealth of experience and a highly creative approach.”
