Pattison (pictured) will take over on 2 January 2013, with Paul Hayes stepping down after two and a half years in the role. Hayes, managing director of News International Commercial, will continue to sit on the Newsworks board.
The appointment is a landmark moment for Newsworks: Pattison becomes its first-ever independent chairman, selected from outside its own membership of national newspaper owners. Pattison, a well-known media industry figure, was formerly co-founder and then CEO of media agency PHD Worldwide, as well being a past president of the IPA.
The move symbolises how far the organisation has come since appointing Rufus Olins as CEO in January this year. Olins first move was to relaunch and re-structure the former Newspaper Marketing Agency and, in doing so, rebrand it as Newsworks to more effectively represent the national newspaper industry to advertisers and their agencies. Olins also adopted the term ‘newsbrands’ as a platform-neutral descriptor, to more accurately acknowledge members’ print and digital offerings.
Olins said: "I would like to thank Paul Hayes for the leadership and support he has shown as chairman for the past two and half years. We have gone through a period of significant change and the time is now right for an independent non-executive chairman. David is ideal for that role. He is a highly-respected figure in both the agency and wider marketing community; a successful business builder; and he has real insight into the challenges and opportunities ahead."
Pattison added: “I am really pleased to be helping Rufus and Newsworks. People will always want to know what the news is. The newspaper owners now reach their consumers through a range of different delivery systems and are working on the marketing opportunities this represents to their clients. The redefined brief for Newsworks is a very good, modern example of how the industry has embraced the structural changes and is finding solutions for it. It’s a very exciting time to be getting involved.”
David Pattison was co-founder, and the "P", in PHD Worldwide, the media agency formed in 1990. After its sale to Omnicom, he became Worldwide CEO with the company achieving annual billings of $6bn by the time he left in 2007. In 2005, he was the first person from a media agency to become President of the IPA and, in the same year, was the first to be voted as Campaign’s ‘Media Achiever of the Year’. He went on to become CEO, and later non-executive chairman, of the interactive agency iLG Digital. Since 2010 he has worked in his own marketing services consultancy helping companies launch, grow and thrive.
About Newsworks
Newsworks says: “Newsworks is the marketing body for the national newspaper industry. Its stake holders include: Guardian News & Media, Evening Standard, Independent Print, Mail Newspapers, Mirror Group Newspapers, News International, Telegraph Media Group.”
