McClatchy announces corporate reorganization

The McClatchy Company has announced plans to reorganize its corporate operations, including expanding its sales and marketing efforts and integrating McClatchy Interactive, the company's digital hub, into the rest of the company.

"Today's announcement is another step forward in our digital transformation," said Pat Talamantes, McClatchy's president and CEO. "The reorganization will emphasize innovation and product development to meet the changing needs of our readers and advertisers.

"We believe this move will strengthen our sales and marketing teams to accelerate our digital revenue growth, while at the same time demonstrating to advertisers the continuing value of our print products. And it will reshape McClatchy Interactive to better integrate technology throughout the company, a natural next step in our company's evolution," Talamantes said.

The company is working toward a June 30 implementation date, which coincides with the previously announced retirement of Bob Weil, one of two McClatchy vice presidents for operations and a member of McClatchy's senior management team. The reorganization means new roles and responsibilities for two senior executives, Mark Zieman, vice president, operations, and Christian A. Hendricks, vice president of interactive media.

Beginning June 30, Zieman will continue in an expanded role as vice president of operations with oversight of McClatchy's 29 local media properties, the corporate digital revenue development team and the corporate production team.

Additionally, Zieman will oversee an expanded corporate advertising department to increase the company's sales strength, assist local markets with training, revenue growth strategies and new sales tools. A search both inside and outside McClatchy has begun for a new vice president of advertising to lead the new sales group along with a director of sales operations, who will also play a key role.

Hendricks will take on new responsibilities and a new title June 30 as vice president of products, marketing and innovation. He will assume oversight of audience development, business development, product management, mobile initiatives, marketing, corporate communications, and external partnerships and will continue his oversight of McClatchy's Tru Measure subsidiary.

As part of the changes, employees with McClatchy Interactive, the company's digital division in Raleigh, N.C., will become part of other company operations, including technology, finance, digital revenue development and digital news.

"When MI was formed in 1995, we didn't know what our digital future had in store for us," Talamantes said. "Twenty years later, we are a digital media company. Last month our digital products had 45.2 million monthly unique visitors with a majority of them coming from mobile devices. Print advertising, once the primary source of our advertising revenues, now represents approximately one-third of our total revenues.

"Given this vast change, it only makes sense to infuse the digital expertise of MI's talented employees into the rest of the company to streamline decision-making and operations and further accelerate our digital transformation," Talamantes said.