Archant chief executive, Adrian Jeakings, wrote to all staff on 10 October: “We have made great progress this year in turning around the financial results of Archant. We have a clear vision, we have remarkable creativity and we produce fantastic products.
“Our challenges however continue: even with the great work that we’ve all done this year, and the progress that we’ve made, our revenues are still lower than last year. To change this is going to require us to act differently and, in particular, execute change better. To do this we need to change our structure and my leadership team.
“We will move from three trading divisions to two which will build on the obvious success of the market-facing divisions that we created in 2011,” he said.
Current Archant Lifestyle MD, Miller Hogg, will lead a new trading division which will include the current Anglia business, the newspapers in London and all operations in Kent.
The other division will be led by current Archant London MD, Will Hattam, and will include most county magazines, London magazines, consumer and specialist magazines, the weddings’ business and newspapers in the South West.
“I am confident that there is a significant opportunity to grow our business through offering a broader range of services to our clients in the communities we serve,” said Adrian.
“I have asked retiring Archant Anglia MD, Johnny Hustler, to remain with the company to lead the development of a new business unit, Archant Marketing Services, which will include our client publishing business Archant Dialogue. Johnny will remain on the Group Board.
“In order to make the most of the digital opportunities open to us, and to be sure that we get the best out of our resources, we are bringing together all of our digital development and product management under a single digital organisation,” said Adrian.
Serge Taborin, currently MD of the Archant Digital Ventures team, is working with Archant Group Operations Director Nick Schiller and Adrian to shape the new digital team. Responsibility for local digital sales and content creation in each market will remain in the appropriate trading division.
“The capture and use of data in everything we do are fundamental to our future,” said Adrian. “I have decided that Richard Wilks, our Director of Analytics and Insight, will report to me as leader of Archant Data Services.
The new structure will take effect from 1 January 2014.
