Denver Newspaper Agency chief executive and president Kirk MacDonald will trade a long career in newspapers for a new one in sports and entertainment marketing.
MacDonald, 50, will leave the agency that oversees business operations at The Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News at the end of May to become CEO of iM&I, which stands for Interactive Marketing and Innovation. The firm is a new affiliate of Denver-based sports marketing consultancy The Bonham Group.
“All careers have different chapters,” MacDonald said Wednesday. “I was ready to go on to my next act.”
MacDonald is a triathlete and an endurance bicyclist. The new venture combines what he describes as three of his passions – sports, technology and media.
iM&I will be based in Denver with offices in London and Krakow, Poland, a European center for creative design work. It will focus on outsourced partnership marketing and sports sponsorships. ap, The Post’s owner, will be the firm’s first media customer.
Besides MacDonald, partners in the venture include David Ehrlich, a former chief operating officer of Kroenke Sports Enterprises, and Dean Bonham and Rob Vogel, CEO and president, respectively, of The Bonham Group.
“Kirk has always had that entrepreneurial streak in him,” said Ehrlich, president of iM&I. “We have known each other for years. He is a friend and mentor.”
MacDonald started in journalism as a copy boy at age 12 and was a top executive at The Post during the mid-’90s when it battled the Rocky Mountain News for dominance.
He became the first CEO of the agency when the two papers formed a joint operating agreement. The JOA was announced in 2000 and effective in 2001.
MacDonald said he has mulled a career change for the past year and informed Post publisher William Dean Singleton and Richard Boehne, chief operating officer of News parent E.W. Scripps, in early March of his plans to leave.
He said he agreed to stay on until a replacement was found.
Although the agency had a difficult first quarter financially, MacDonald said it “had nothing to do with my decision to leave.”
Nor were health issues a factor, said agency spokesman Jim Nolan. MacDonald was in a bicycle accident several months ago that required shoulder surgery, but he is competing again in endurance events.
Among the achievements MacDonald lists during his tenure:
Constructing a new building to house agency operations and both newsrooms under one roof, and plans to consolidate two printing plants into one.
Building the combined online and print audience to levels higher than the two newspapers reported before the JOA.
Launching YourHub.com, an online and print product.
MacDonald said he is most proud of preserving the independence of Denver’s two dailies.
“We said we would keep two independent editorial voices,” MacDonald said. “We kept that promise.”
Kirk MacDonald
Age: 50
New job: Partner and chief executive of iM&I, a Denver-based sports and entertainment marketing company.
Current position: Chief executive of the Denver Newspaper Agency, which handles the business operations for The Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News.
Career: Began his newspaper career at age 12 as a copy boy and cub sports reporter in Solana Beach, Calif.; joined The Denver Post in 1989, working his way from advertising director to executive vice president and general manager by 1995; hired in 1998 as vice president for Hearst Newspapers; became the first president and chief executive of the DNA
Family: Wife, Kathleen; one daughter.
Hobbies: Endurance bicycling, triathlons and nonprofit work.
VICKIE MAKINGS and BARRY OSBORNE
