The newly created role will see him lead the partnerships team which recently underwent a restructure to now blend Metro’s planning and partnerships offering within the commercial team.
Previously, Vokes worked at Metro as Director of Olympics from 2011-2013; working closely with the sales team to deliver an unprecedented £12million worth of revenue into the business from official and non-official sponsors of London 2012. This included the Media Week Award-winning cover wrap campaign with adidas and a solus partnership with British Airways. He was also instrumental in launching the first ever weekend newspaper editions of Metro in London, as well as an afternoon Tablet Edition.
Following this success and until recently, he has been working at News UK as Head of Creative Solutions, driving media ideas and partnerships into The Sun, The Times and The Sunday Times brands. Vokes now returns to the urban media brand to lead its bolstered partnerships team which sits within STORY, its in-house creative division.
Creative Director, Sophie Robinson says: “I am over the moon to have ‘Vokesy’ return to drive our partnerships offering. Our creative powerhouse, STORY has been successfully delivering first class content and experiences for clients – something he will undoubtedly now take to the next level for Metro.”
This latest development within Metro’s commercial team coincides with an 8% year on year increase in readership of the newspaper, according to the latest NRS results – compared to an average 6% decline by competitor titles. This is the fourth consecutive period of growth for Metro and takes its average issue readership to 3.4million, say the publishers.
