OLD Media Moves

More on Dow Jones restructuring

January 25, 2010

Dow Jones & Co. president Todd Larsen — who took over the spot at the beginning of the year — sent this memo Monday to the company’s employees, further outlining who reports to whom in the corporate restructuring where four executives are leaving the publisher of The Wall Street Journal.

Larsen writes, “Dear colleagues,

“I would like to share with you today the structure of the new Dow Jones organization and some of the principal leaders.  Like most complex global media companies, we need a matrixed structure to operate efficiently while focusing on core products and customers, key functions and primary geographies.

“The new organization will have five business groups – each will operate with a clear profit and loss (P&L) approach:

  • The Wall Street Journal in print
  • The Wall Street Journal Digital Network
  • Dow Jones Financial Markets (includes Newswires and products geared to financial professionals)
  • Dow Jones Corporate Markets (includes Factiva and products geared to corporate markets)
  • Dow Jones Indexes

“These seven groups will provide functional support for those product teams:

  • Technology
  • Marketing
  • Enterprise sales and Client Solutions
  • Advertising sales
  • Circulation
  • Operations, including production and distribution
  • Strategy and development (including Dow Jones Ventures)

“And finally, we will have regional leaders in Europe and Asia.  These people will continue to manage our consumer businesses there while providing strategic direction for the overall growth of Dow Jones in each region.

“These are the leaders for each of those groups, all of whom report to me:

Kelly Leach becomes general manager of the Journal where she will be responsible for the business of the Journal in print.  She will manage the P&L, set a shared vision for the business and marshal the efforts of Journal colleagues to protect and extend this flagship brand and maximize its opportunities. Kelly previously was vice president for business management at the Journal.

Gordon McLeod continues as the president of The Wall Street Journal Digital Network. He is responsible for the Journal’s online business as well as MarketWatch and other digital products.

Joe Lanza becomes president of the Financial Markets group where he will oversee the core Newswires business as well as drive growth in vital areas such as investment banking, sales and trading, wealth management and private markets. He previously was vice president and managing director for sales and trading.

Scott Schulman becomes president for the Corporate Markets group. He will oversee the core Factiva business as well as drive growth in key areas such as research and knowledge workers, public relations and corporate communications, risk and compliance, energy and commodities, information services and business relationship intelligence. Scott previously was president of Dow Jones Financial Information Services.

Mike Petronella continues as president of Dow Jones Indexes where he has provided so much of the energy and imagination behind the success of our stock-index licensing business.

Dennis Cahill is named senior vice president for technology and will lead the new combined technology organization. His task is to integrate the former EMG and CMG technology teams and to spur the creativity we will need to hold the attention of readers into the future. Ruby Walia, who has done a phenomenal job in his two years at Dow Jones, will report to Dennis and help him lead the combined team to success.

“Jennifer Jehn joins Dow Jones as senior vice president for marketing. She will be responsible for brand marketing, advertising, customer research and customer service.  Jennifer previously was the senior vice president for marketing, online and human resources at the New York Post.

“Lee Wood becomes senior vice president for enterprise sales and client solutions.  He will lead the sales teams serving all our enterprise customers for both the Financial Markets and the Corporate Markets groups as well as the Client Solutions business.

Michael Rooney is chief revenue officer of The Wall Street Journal where he will continue to manage the advertising sales and marketing group.

Lynne Brennen, senior vice president for circulation, is charged with maintaining growth in circulation at the Journal and other Dow Jones consumer publications.

Joe Vincent, senior vice president for operations, leads the Journal’s production and distribution effort, including the ongoing projects to increase color capacity and move the point of production closer to the customer.

Ann Sarnoff is president of Dow Jones Ventures and also becomes senior vice president for strategy, adding to her portfolio by taking on strategy and business development responsibility in addition to her oversight of WSJ conferences and ventures.  Simon Alterman, who has been a valuable strategic resource for EMG, will report to Ann and help her define our strategy.

Andrew Langhoff remains publisher of The Wall Street Journal Europe and becomes managing director for EMEA for Dow Jones where he will add responsibility for the strategic growth of the company in that region.

Christine Brendle remains publisher of The Wall Street Journal Asia and becomes managing director for Asia/Pacific for Dow Jones. She too will take on leadership for the strategic development of Dow Jones in her region. Bruce Macfarlane has decided to leave the company but will work closely with Christine on enterprise strategy and Lee Wood on sales to ease the transition through the coming months.

“Also leaving the company in this transition are three executives on whom we have relied significantly. Richard Hanks, Bill Voltmer and Alan Scott have made huge contributions to Dow Jones, and they depart with our admiration and thanks.

“As you can see, we maintain a clear focus on key customer groups.  We remain committed to driving growth and improving our products for enterprise markets. And we continue to have a separate focus on developing our consumer businesses.  Yet this integrated structure enables us to be more efficient and coordinated.   With one technology organization, we can build things once and take advantage of that work in as many places as makes sense for customers.  This will allow us to bring better products to the market sooner.

“I know some questions about the structure remain unanswered, but we will have everything resolved soon.  Our objective in all this is to make sure Dow Jones remains a modern, agile company offering great products driven by great content.  Our success will be defined by how well we harness the power of our products and the creativity inherent in our people.”

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