Dow Jones hires CTO of consumer products from FT

Dow Jones & Co. chief technology officer Paul Meller sent out the following announcement on Thursday:

Dear Colleagues,

I am very excited to welcome John O’Donovan to the Technology Leadership team as CTO, Consumer Products and Platforms.

Alignment between our products and platforms is key to delivering world-class content and our continued success in digital. We plan to make a significant investment in our platforms in FY16 that will enable us build even better products and innovate faster – particularly in mobile.

We look forward to sharing more about these plans in the coming weeks.

Under John, the existing Consumer Product Technology and Platforms teams will be consolidated into a single organizational structure. He will be responsible for the technology for all of our Consumer brands including WSJ, Barron’s, MarketWatch and eFinancialNews.

I have asked John to work with his new team (Pete Kostakis, Kevin Dotzenrod, Lauren Greene, Bob Krass and Milin Patel) and the broader Technology Leadership team on a plan and structure to build world-class products that our customers love, and, to lead our strategy and investment in customer and content platforms.

Before joining Dow Jones, John was CTO at the Financial Times where he drove a strategy to deliver cultural and technology changes which allowed the FT to expand its content services and subscription platforms, reaching new markets and customers.

Prior to this, John delivered industry changing innovation as Chief Architect of BBC News and Sport. In this role, he helped kickstart the Video On Demand industry with the groundbreaking BBC iPlayer.

I look forward to the energy and ideas John will bring to enable us to continue our digital evolution.

Please join me in welcoming him to the team.