Gosney, a former RBI board member, accepted the award from last year's winner Trevor Fenwick, Managing Director of Euromonitor International, at the 2012 PPA Chairman's Reception at Stationers' Hall near St Paul's on February 6.
(Picture shows Jerry (on left) accepting the award from Trevor Fenwick.)
The event was attended by around 200 senior figures from the publishing sector and also served to mark Kevin Hand's official inauguration as Chairman of the PPA. Hand replaces Charles Reed, Group Managing Director of William Reed Business Media, who now becomes the PPA's Deputy Chairman.
Established in 2008, the George Henderson Award recognises an individual's outstanding contribution to the UK data and business publishing sector.
Having begun his career as a journalist and editor at Northwood (now Emap) and Haymarket, and twice voted International Building Press (IBP) Business Journalist of the Year, Gosney rose to become Publishing Director at RBI. He went on to join William Reed as a board member with responsibility for the publishing wing of the business, where he led the reorganisation of the company's brands and workflow, helping The Grocer to claim PPA Business Magazine of the Year in 1998.
Gosney rejoined RBI in 2001 with main board responsibility for the directories division, later renamed RBI Search and home of major products such as Bankers' Almanac, Kelly's and Kompass. He pioneered the brands' online migration by remodelling workflow, sales propositions and content, helping online revenues grow to comprise 85 per cent of total income.
Gosney joined the Directory Publishers Association board in 2003, was made Chairman in 2006 and then Executive Director in 2008. He was influential in pushing for the association to shift its focus on the delivery of business data online, which led to it being renamed the Data Publishers Association in 2005.
Today, he remains a consultant to the PPA BMG and is involved in planning the 2012 PPA Conference, taking place on May 9.
PPA CEO Barry McIlheney said: “Jerry's track record in business-to-business and data publishing speaks for itself and it is great to see his name added to the impressive list of winners of the George Henderson Award.
“Jerry has been the driving force behind many of the PPA's activities for business media members in recent years and I look forward to working with him and Joe Hames to develop a powerful agenda for business media publishers at this year's PPA Conference.”
Jerry Gosney added: “I'm very proud to receive the George Henderson Award, a true career highlight for me. I still plan to contribute directly to the development of digital publishing, and also help the PPA respond to the changing requirements of its B2B members, for whom delivery of high value subscription data services is now the preferred business model."
The George Henderson Award was established in 2008 by the Data Publishers Association (DPA) to commemorate outstanding contribution to the UK data and business publishing sector. It is named after the pioneering business librarian George Poland Henderson whose work at Guildhall Library laid the foundations for the City Business Library. Henderson was the founder of CBD Research Limited and was involved in setting up the European and the British Associations of Directory Publishers and served as chairman of both organisations.
About PPA
The PPA says: “The Professional Publishers Association (PPA) promotes and protects the interests of print and online publishers of consumer and business media in the UK. The PPA has around 200 publishing companies in its membership, which collectively produce more than 2,500 consumer and business magazines and journals as well as digital media, data products and events.”
