The honorary role is for a one-year term commencing on 1 January 2012 when he will take over from the charity’s outgoing President, Sir Christopher Meyer KCMG.
Murdoch MacLennan (pictured), Chief Executive, Telegraph Media Group, said: “I am delighted to be involved and do what I can to help this hugely important charity which impacts on the lives of so many in our industry.”
Stephen Gilbert, Chief Executive of The Printing Charity, said: “We’re looking forward to working closely with Mr MacLennan to help raise the charity’s profile within the printing and publishing industries. We want everyone who works or has worked in the industry to know about The Printing Charity as we have the resources to help individuals and their dependents, who are experiencing financial hardship.”
Murdoch MacLennan has been Chief Executive of the Telegraph Media Group since October 2004, having previously been Group Managing Director of Associated Newspapers. He worked in the Thomson Regional Newspapers offices in Edinburgh, Newcastle, South Wales and Reading. In 1982 he joined the Board of the Scottish Daily Record and Sunday Mail as Production Director, before taking senior positions in London with the Mirror Group and Express Newspapers. He later returned to Scotland in the early nineties as Managing Director of the Scottish Daily Record and Sunday Mail before taking the position with Associated Newspapers in the mid-nineties. He was President of IFRA (the global technical association for newspapers) from 1997 – 2003 and became a vice president of the World Association of Newspapers. From 2005-07 he was Chairman of the Newspaper Publishers Association. He was also a Visiting Professor at the Business School at Glasgow University, a position he held for twelve years and recently he was appointed the Chancellor’s Assessor on the Court of the University. In 2008-9 he was a member of the Calman Commission which reported earlier in the summer of 2009 on the future of Scottish devolution. He was appointed Chairman of the Press Association in 2010.
The Printing Charity, set up in 1827, provides financial support for people who work or have worked in the UK printing, publishing, graphic arts and allied trades for a minimum of five years, as well as their dependent family members.
