German publishing company Georg von Holtzbrinck announces that Internet expert Johann Butting will join the company’s management as head of Holtzbrinck Digital GmbH as of Oct. 15.

Butting is currently director of AdSence Online at Google Europe. His assignment goes along with Holtzbrinck’s initiated Internet-oriented policy and strengthens the company’s management in the digital field.

Chairman of the board, Stefan von Holtzbrinck comments: “I’m pleased that we have won Johann Butting, a proven Internet expert. With his international background and experience in fields like traffic generation and monetization, he will become an important asset and continue the success of the company’s Internet heavyweights including Parship, the VZ networks, Myhammer, Myphotobook, Gutefrage.net, etc.

“More intimate cooperation is to create synergies in the fields of IT and technology”, von Holtzbrinck adds. He also hopes that the new management structure will promote growth opportunities abroad.

The Portuguese media holding Controlinveste SA, owned and founded and controlled by Portuguese sports rights mogul Joaquim Oliveira, has with Luis Ferreira assigned a new holding commercial director, reports media magazine Meios & Publicidade. Read the rest of this entry »

Suburban Chicago’s Daily Herald,  part of  Paddock Publications, has just announced that Kelly Bolyard is the paper’s new director of digital development. Bolyard adds this to her role of online sales and classified advertising head.

A five-year Daily Herald veteran, Bolyard used to direct business consulting and online revenue for Morris Communications’ 27 daily newspaper websites.

She serves on Paddock’s Yahoo Newspaper Consortium, a collaboration she helped bring about.

Jeff Herr, VP for interactive at Lee Enterprises, is to be the new  interactive  VP at The California Newspapers Partnership. Herr begins his new career with the state’s largest newspaper publishing group Sept. 27.

“Jeff’s achievements and keen focus on emerging media technologies and platforms as well as his proven abilities to effectively monetize those opportunities makes him the ideal talent for this important role,” CNP President and CEO Steve Rossi told the San Jose Mercury News.

CNP, whose majority owner is MediaNews Group, publishes the Mercury News, Contra Costa Times and Oakland Tribune.  In total, it publishes 34 dailies and 50 weeklies.

John Winn Miller, most recently publisher of The Olympian in Washington, is to be  publisher of the Concord (NH) Monitor.

A former AP reporter and Pulitzer finalist who worked in Rome, Beirut, Libya, India, Ethiopia and Bulgaria, Miller was also city editor at the Lexington (KY) Herald-Leader before becoming executive editor at the Centre Daily Times (State College, Pa.) and then SVP  of the Tallahassee (FL) Democrat.

Miller succeeds Geordie Wilson.

Trinity Mirror, which publishes the Local Mole regional business websites, looks set to up the ante with a new management structure.

Trinity Mirror Regionals said it was strengthening its digital-management team with the creation of two new senior roles: digital commercial director and Local Mole general manager.

When hired, both executives will report directly to David Black, the group director of digital publishing. All of which apparently makes the current role of regionals digital director redundant, which means the current incumbent in that role, Chris Bunyan, is negotiating his future with the company.

Jason Kissell, who has been The Boston Globe’s executive director of advertising is now its Vice President, Advertising.  Effective immediately, he oversees advertising for The Globe, Boston.com and its specialty publications.

“Jason has developed innovative ways to strengthen our local advertising position by establishing strategic business agreements and building deep relationships with customers,” said Lisa DeSisto, Globe chief advertising officer, in the announcement. “This promotion will allow Jason to extend his leadership and expertise to all categories of our business.”

Kissell joined The Globe in 2002, moving from outside recruitment ad sales to bizdev director and then managing director.

Richard Yeo, previously CTO at e-commerce company eCommera, is now CTO at DGMT’s The Digital Property Group (TDGP) where he will be watching over the stable of PrimeLocation.com, FindAProperty.com, Globrix.com and FindANewHome.com.  Classifieds are likely to prove familiar territory for Yeo since prior to eCommera he was CTO of Fish4.