A team of top executives has been named by Digital First Media, which jointly manages the Journal Register Co. and Media News Group, which owns The Denver Post.
Tuesday’s appointments in sales, content and operational positions are a major step in the company’s transition to digital delivery of news, John Paton, chief executive of Digital First Media, said in a statement.
“With today’s announcement, we are putting into place the very best team to lead both ap and Journal Register in implementing our digital-first strategy,” Paton said.
Denver Post president and CEO Jerry Grilly was named an executive vice president with Digital First Media. He will continue his Denver Post duties while serving on the executive committee for Digital First Media, which is based in New York.
“I’ll be doing pretty much what I’m doing now, which is developing a collaborative strategy and vision, but I’ll be doing it on a higher level over the whole company,” Grilly said. “In that collaborative environment, we will continue to define the model for transformative information delivery.”
Kirk MacDonald was named Digital First Media’s executive vice president of sales. He has served as The Denver Post’s executive vice president of advertising, marketing and digital sales since July 2009.
The digital delivery model comes with “a huge audience size,” MacDonald said. Digital First Media reports reaching 57 million Americans each month through more than 800 multiplatform products in 18 states.
“The whole concept of digital first is maximizing the digital revenues and accelerating those that we generate . . . in an effort to overcome the decline in print sales over the last several years,” MacDonald said.
Jeff Bairstow, who has served as the Journal Register Co.’s chief financial officer, was named president of Digital First Media and president of ap. He will oversee daily operations across both companies.
Other Digital First Media executive appointments:
• Ron Mayo was named chief financial officer. He will retain his duties as CFO of Media News Group in addition to his new role.
• Arturo Duran, who joined Journal Register in 2010 as executive vice president for digital, was named chief digital officer.
• Adam Burnham, who has served as Journal Register’s vice president of local sales, was named senior vice president of local digital sales.
• William Higginson, Journal Register president, was named executive vice president of operations.
• Jim Brady, Journal Register’s editor in chief, was named editor in chief of Digital First Media.
• David J. Butler, who has served as vice president of news for MediaNews and editor of the San Jose Mercury News, was named executive editor.
• Also named executive vice presidents were Steve Rossi, who is responsible for Media News Group’s California operations, and Tom Wiley, who has served as a group publisher for Journal Register.
Ann Schrader: 303-954-1967 or aschrader@denverpost.com
