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Cait O'Riordan Financial Times Media

Financial Times appoints first chief technical officer after John O’Donovan’s departure last year

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By Jessica Goodfellow | Media Reporter

August 9, 2016 | 3 min read

The Financial Times has promoted director of platforms John Kundert to chief technical officer, the first under Cait O’Riordan’s leadership following the exit of John O’Donovan in June last year.

Financial Times

Financial Times

Kundert was formerly director of platforms at the FT, and was instrumental in establishing the FT’s data platform and forming the backbone of the newsbrand’s set of data capabilities. He has been with the media company since 2002.

There are no plans to immediately fill Kundert’s previous role as director of platforms. In his new role as chief technical officer, Kundert has been charged with leading the FT’s technology strategy across the development and operations teams, ensuring that technical strategies and solutions are aligned with business needs and vision. He will continue to oversee platforms.

This is a first chief technical officer role that reports directly to chief product and information officer Cait O'Riordan, who joined the FT in February 2016 from Shazam. FT’s former chief technical officer John O’Donovan left the company in June 2015 to join Dow Jones as chief technical officer of consumer products and platforms.

On why the FT chose to appoint a chief technical officer now, over one year since O’Donovan left, O’Riordan told The Drum: "In my experience, things go incredibly well when you have both a really strong product team and a really strong technology team. With Bede McCarthy leading the FT's product team and now John Kundert leading technology, I've got a really solid team in place.

"Given how important a successful technology strategy is to future of the FT, it's vital to have someone of John's calibre leading it.

"John has a long track-record at the FT of delivering ground-breaking digital solutions. His FT domain knowledge, together with his experience at a leading startup commercialising data, will be invaluable as we embrace the challenges of tomorrow."

Cait O'Riordan Financial Times Media

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