Based in New York, Havens will be responsible for Bloomberg’s global consumer digital initiatives, overseeing digital product, user experience, partnerships, and overall digital strategy for Bloomberg’s websites, mobile apps, over-the-top platforms, and distributed content partnerships. He will start on Monday, November 16th.
Havens is SVP, Digital at Time Inc, where he manages operations and drives the strategic development of digital products within the news, business, sports, and entertainment verticals, including People, Time, Sports Illustrated, Fortune, Entertainment Weekly and other titles. Over the last two years at Time Inc, US traffic grew almost 50% while digital revenue eclipsed 50%. At Bloomberg, Havens will work closely with Jared Sandberg, Editor of Bloomberg Business, to build on Bloomberg’s digital success with the goal of creating the leading multi-platform media destination for global business and finance.
“Scott is a digital pioneer and innovator with deep expertise in the business and financial digital media space,” said Smith. “He has transformed traditional media organizations into digital powerhouses, and has created new category-transforming brands and business models. At Bloomberg, Scott will build on our efforts to create the most influential global digital platform for business and financial leaders.”
“I am thrilled about the opportunity to partner with Justin and the amazing team at Bloomberg Media, and am eager to help accelerate the enviable digital progress that has been made under his stewardship,” said Havens. “My passion for working with the world’s best journalists to create a sustainable media business model across an ever-expanding set of platforms has only increased as the media landscape has become progressively complex.”
Over the past year, Bloomberg Media has launched two new modern websites, including the BloombergBusiness.com flagship. Growing more than 70% year-over-year, BloombergBusiness.com posted 21.6 million unique visitors in the US in September, say the publishers. Bloomberg Media has introduced regional digital expansions to better serve growing global audiences, with the EMEA edition launching in April 2015 and Asia-Pacific this week. Bloomberg Media has also increased its investment in digital video, and strengthened video creation and distribution. For the first time, Bloomberg claimed the #1 position in comScore’s global business and finance video category for three months in a row this summer. In September, Bloomberg recorded 15.9 video unique visitors and 194 million streams worldwide, growing 73% and 171% respectively.
During his tenure at Time Inc, which included the spin-off of all digital platforms and operations from Time Warner, Havens oversaw the significant rebuilding of the digital teams, strategies, and desktop and mobile platforms across key Time flagship brands including Sports Illustrated, Golf, People, Entertainment Weekly, Fortune, Time and Money. Previously, Havens was President of The Atlantic, overseeing all aspects of Atlantic Media’s flagship brand and playing a key role in the successful digital transformation of the 157-year-old magazine into a profitable, global, multi-platform media company, including strategy and operational roles in the digital launches of The Atlantic Wire, CityLab, and Quartz.
Prior to that, Havens served as Executive Director, Condé Nast Business Media and a founder of innovative business site Portfolio.com. In this role, his team was responsible for business development, online marketing and analytics, and digital strategy. Havens formerly managed the business development team at Yahoo! Finance, the leading financial website, where his primary focus was on managing and negotiating business partnerships, in addition to playing a key role in strategic planning and business operations.
