Now looking: NCI needs new CEO
NCI, which publishes hundreds of real estate rack-and-stack publications, along with several online real estate products, has an opening at the top. The company is conducting a national search to replace CEO Dan McCarthy, who resigned after nine years.
Atlanta-area-based NCI publishes Apartment Finder and The Real Estate Book and their companion websites; several high-end home-and-lifestyle guides, and Digital Sherpa. It’s represented in more than 500 U.S. markets, and calls itself “a leading local media company providing lead generation, advertising and Internet marketing services to the housing industry.” It distributes more than 9.4 million print classified guides monthly and reaches a reported 2 million unique users monthly.
Fulton Collins is serving as interim CEO; Gerry Parker, who was CFO, became president as well. McCarthy will remain on the board of directors. Collins said NCI (formally Network Communications Inc.) would retain an outside search firm to find a permanent CEO. (We’ve called and ask for the name of that search firm — it might help you to know that — but they haven’t called us back.)
“While the Board believes in the strength and ability of current management, it also believes that the search for new leadership should be managed in a prudent and systematic fashion,” Collins said in the news release. “The search firm will be directed to consider internal and external candidates for the position.”
Bradner to Las Vegas R-J: ‘Buh-bye!’
The last 10 years have been brutal for newspaper classified advertising directors everywhere. But nowhere more so than in Las Vegas, where the real estate collapse and the extraordinarily high unemployment rate have been more of a deep “depression” than a “recession.”
So it probably comes as no surprise that Rebecca Bradner, the CAD at the Las Vegas Review-Journal, has pulled the plug.
Bradner, who was class-ad director at The Hartford Courant (owned by Tribune) and at Tucson (Ariz.) Newspapers before she joined the R-J, sent a note to friends saying that she had resigned after “a challenging year.” (Talk about understatement!) Her LinkedIn profile says merely, “No longer at the Review-Journal … . Thinking about my options.”
Even though the Vegas economy is dismal, Bradner had some successes at the R-J. During the boom times, of course, real estate and hiring were strong in Las Vegas, and her classifieds department capitalized on those good years; more recently, she and recruitment advertising manager Chelle Bize developed a series of niche online job sites focusing heavily on employer videos. With a series of URLs like LVCasinoJobs.com, LVHospitalityJobs.com and LVRNJobs.com (for registered nurses), Bradner and Bize innovated like crazy trying to keep an abysmal situation from being even worse.
What’s up next? She doesn’t know yet. But you can probably reach her through LinkedIn. Or through us. (Just don’t use the R-J address that’s still on her LinkedIn page.) Maybe she’ll even make it to the Western Classified Advertising Association conference in San Diego next month; she’s long been a leader at WCAA. Sounds like something she might do even if she has to pay for it out of her own pocket.
Bellack, CV cofounder, joins Newegg as CFO
Bob Bellack, who’s got a long history in newspapers and online classifieds, is another one of those folks who’s left the newspaper and media world. He joined Newegg, one of our favorite online retailers, as CFO.
Bellack worked with Classified Ventures from July 1997 through November 2003, as general manager / SVP of real estate and CFO of the company. His LinkedIn profile says he was a CV cofounder who helped raise the $50 million initial investment in Classified Ventures and then raised another $350 in follow-on investments. More recently, Bellack spent two years as cofounder and CEO of Zetabid.com, an online real estate auction site focused on short sale and foreclosure properties.
Bellack was chief digital officer of the Los Angeles Times Digital Media group for almost five years, from 2004 through 2008, and he also oversaw the L.A. Times online and print classified advertising businesses. L.A. Times Interactive represented 40 percent of all Tribune Interactive revenues. From 1994-1994, he was VP / GM of Tribune Direct, and then joined Compton’s New Media.
Bellack, who will report to Newegg CEO S.C. Lee, has an MBA from Northwestern University and a BS in accountancy from DePaul University. He’s a certified public accountant in Illinois.
Newegg describes itself in the news release as “the second-largest online-only retailer in the United States.” We’re not sure about that, but we do know that it used to be the go-to spot for the best bargains in technology. We spent a lot of money there! (Haven’t bought too many new tech toys lately, so don’t know if it’s still the bargain heaven it once was.)
Loren Dalton promoted at Harte-Hanks
Loren Dalton, long the leader of Harte-Hanks’ sleek, always-evolving PennysaverUSA.com has been recently promoted to SVP, sales and marketing, California Shoppers, we were told by a company spokesperson. Pete Gorman, 32 year veteran of the media firm has retired as president of Harte-Hanks Shoppers and is replaced by Mike Paulsin who has added the presidency to his role as president of California Shoppers.
Dalton launched his career at Harte-Hanks in 1987. Over the years, he has held sales management, marketing and business management positions, and was named president of the Northern California shoppers operation in 1996, and then president of PennySaverUSA.com and TheFlyer.com in 2006
Gabriels adds new VP of sales / marketing
Tom Morgan, who spent 3 1/2 years in various sales and advertising positions at North Jersey Media Group, has joined Gabriels Technology Solutions as VP of sales and marketing.
Morgan, who lists himself on his LinkedIn profile as a “visionary sales executive, leader and team builder,” started at Gabriels a few weeks ago. He’s based at their offices in New York.
Before joining Gabriels, he was chief advertising officer at North Jersey Media Group, which publishes The Record in Hackensack, the Herald News in Passaic County and nine community publications. Previously, Morgan worked as an advertising director for Gannett and spent eight years on the West Coast working for Pacific Sierra Publishing in Merced, Calif., and Sound Publishing in Kitsap, Wash.
Silver leaves Consortium to launch Knight lab
Mike Silver, a newspaper innovator for more than 20 years who once advised Tribune Co. to invest in a small start-up called Quantum Computer Services and most recently led the Newspaper Consortium, will head the new Knight News Innovation Laboratory at Northwestern University.
His appointment was announced today.
Silver held “lots of different vice-presidencies” at Tribune Co. and has an MBA from Stanford and an MS in journalism from Columbia University. He started his career as a reporter at the Miami Herald, and spent almost four years as a reporter at The Orlando Sentinel before moving into television at a Miami public television station. He was with Tribune from 1985 through 2007 and joined the Newspaper Consortium in August of 2008.
“The Knight Lab presents a unique opportunity to foster innovation through technologies with appeal to traditional news providers as well as the many new voices that are shaping the way we keep up with news today,” Silver said in the news release.
The lab, described as “the first of its kind” by Northwestern, will bring together journalists and computer scientists “to improve the news and information people use to understand their communities and run their lives.” Rich Gordon, who like Silver also worked at the Miami Herald, is a professor and director of digital innovation at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism and has long been trying to get journalists and computer scientists to work together.
“Mike’s depth of experience in digital technologies, publishing, news and media is exactly what we need to move the Knight Lab forward,“ said Kristian J. Hammond, director of the Medill-McCormick Center for Innovation in Technology, Media and Journalism. “With him at the helm we are set to transform a set of exciting possibilities into a brilliant reality.”
Oh, about that small start-up, Quantum? It later became AOL, and Tribune’s investment of $5 million for a 9 percent stake was worth more than $1.5 billion at one point.
- Zillow Introduces Zillow Partnership Platform
- HomeFinder.com Launches 2012 Agent Makeover Sweepstakes
- Quick Response Codes made available for Classified Liners with AdPerfect Classified Advertising Solution Release 2.9
- Audi, Chevrolet, and Volkswagen Rate Highest in Automotive Advertising ‘Best Practices’ With Messages of Efficiency and Innovation
- Yahoo! Names Fred Amoroso Chairman and Appoints Ross Levinsohn Interim CEO
- Tweet It, Like It, Watch It, Buy It. Leo Burnett/Arc Worldwide’s New Study Finds 95 Million Americans Use Social Media To Shop
- Working Moms Taking Less Maternity Leave, CareerBuilder’s Annual Mother’s Day Survey Finds
- TheHomePage.com.au launches Chinese listings
- planetRE Launches Cutting Edge Online Marketing and Transaction Tools for Property Rentals and Management
- Groupon Merchant Satisfaction Beats Industry Benchmarks
