Fairfax looks for digital director as part of overhaul

Posted by Leah McBride Mensching on March 4, 2010 at 1:48 PM

As Fairfax Media restructures, adding a digital director with wide-ranging media experience is essential for the Australian media group's renewal, board chairman Roger Corbett told The Australian this week.

Corbett said he is talking to potential hires who will help strengthen the digital area. "We have pretty good traditional media experience in, of course, John Fairfax and (managing director) Brian McCarthy, but we certainly want to have a mind that understands media and helps us move into this broad new era and the changes that will happen," he said.

Three new appointments to the board include Sam Morgan, founder of TradeMe, which was sold to Fairfax for A$700 million in 2006; Sandra McPhee, director of Australia's AGL energy and Kathmandu Holdings; and Linda Nicholls, former chairwoman of the Australian Post, according to The National Business Review.

"Audit and risk are very important for a big company, but after talking to Brian [McCarthy at an investor lunch] it would be good to see someone else who could push the digital growth story inside the boardroom," one Fairfax shareholder who asked to not be named told The Australian.

Corbett has said the fourth board member, with media experience, will be filled in the next few months, according to a column by Margaret Simons for Crikey.

"As it is, there is no evidence in these [three] appointments that Fairfax is grappling with the need for innovation or making the necessary big shifts in strategic thinking," Simons wrote. "The board still lacks anybody with an inside understanding of journalism. Given that quality journalism is Fairfax's main 'point of difference' in the crowded media marketplace, it is an extraordinary oversight."

Fairfax newspapers include the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age, the Australian Financial Review and more.