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News International restructures Scottish sales department

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By The Drum Team, Editorial

June 23, 2010 | 4 min read

The Drum has learned that 13 members of staff are to leave the sales team at News International Scotland following a redundancy consultation process.

The 30-strong sales team at News International was informed this morning of the restructure which will see senior members of the team, Paul McMahon, head of business development in Scotland, Vincent Rea, head of retail, Moyra Reid, head of recruitment and Maggie Sheridan, category manager, leave the sales management team.

Of the management team, Robert Shepherd, head of digital, will now take on the role of head of classified while Karen Sinclair, head of property has been appointed as head of display.

Another management role is to be created, head of trading, which is currently being recruited externally.

A new management structure will be put in place within the team, with head of trading acting as deputy to regional sales director Sandra Tinker, who will oversee the running of both the Scottish and Manchester teams, which is also expected to undergo some imminent changes.

The Glasgow-based team is responsible for The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun and the News of the World North of the Border.

Tinker told The Drum that she had appointed a team called ‘the Creative Hub’ which would work across Manchester and Scotland which has had additional resource put behind the team made up of three account managers, a senior account manager and an executive account manager, who will handle digital and creative solutions.

“As part of the wider company we are looking at cost savings and we are expected to return the company to earlier profit levels this year. Part of this exercise is looking at costs and costs savings. Although 13 of them are going, having opened a voluntary redundancy window just before we went through the restructure, we had a healthy number of applicants, with seven going on a voluntary basis, which we’ve accepted. We were originally looking for 10 people, but we’ve got 13 which we’ve gone with, which means we now have vacancies to fill.”

Tinker continued to explain that she had decided to return the team to working in a ‘classified’ structure having taken over the office in April when it worked using a ‘vertical market’ structure where staff worked in particular sectors such as motors, property, and recruitment. That will now return to a ‘display and classified’ structure.

“It has been a very tough process for everybody. It’s been a very difficult time and we’ve had to say ‘goodbye’ to some people although the management team has been great. Everybody has worked hard during the process,” added Tinker.

Tinker was appointed to oversee the running of the Scottish sales division following the departure of sales director Elaine Ward-Fincham at the end of April, the same time as Steven Walker general manager of News International Scotland left the company.

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