ESI Media restructures top tier with Jon O'Donnell becoming commercial managing director
ESI Media, London Evening Standard, Independent and London Live owner, has announced a major reshuffle of its leadership.
Group commercial director Jon O'Donnell will become the managing director of ESI Commercial. He will be charged with heading commercial activity including the newly launched events business, ESI Live.
He'll also have oversight of marketing, PR and insight, bringing together these key functions to build an integrated commercial offering.
Further to that, Tim Kirkman, currently chief operating officer of London Live, will become managing director of the TV channel.
The restructure was issued by Manish Malhotra, recently appointed group managing director on an interim basis.
Manish Malhotra, group managing director of ESI Media, said: “We’re creating a management team that’s focused on maximising the commercial growth of our brands.
"By bringing together commercial, marketing and insight under Jon, we will offer our advertising partners a more integrated offering, enabling them to capitalise on our in-depth understanding of our audiences whilst also optimising our marketing activity in line with commercial objectives.”
Jon O’Donnell, managing director of ESI Commercial, added: “These are exciting times for ESI Media. We can now offer more integrated partnerships that allow brands to easily access the communities we engage.
"With The Independent now the largest pure play news site in the UK and our London proposition offering significant audiences through print, digital, television and events we are an extremely effective interface for accessing Londoners. I’m very much looking forward to help drive the business to even greater success in the future."
It comes after the title reshaped the Independent into a digital-only title in May.