TIME Announces New Leadership Across Sales & Marketing
TIME President Keith Grossman sent the following note to TIME Staff Tuesday:
Team,
It has been a pleasure spending time with so many of you over these past five weeks and I would be remiss if I did not express my appreciation toward everyone around the world who preceded my time here for your hard work over the years. What each of you have accomplished under the circumstances prior to the sale of our brand is beyond impressive and I hope you are all proud. Thank you!
We are at the beginning of some exciting plans, with new arrivals and changes over the coming weeks. I hope this increased investment in our organization energizes you as much as it does me.
Today, it is with great pleasure that I announce the following:
Viktoria Degtar will be joining TIME as its Chief Revenue Officer. Viktoria and I worked closely together at Bloomberg where she oversaw the success and consistent growth of its business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Prior to that, Viktoria was the VP of Sales at HuffPo and also held roles at Federated Media, Martha Stewart and the Financial Times. One of TIME’s greatest strengths is the power of its global footprint and Viktoria has agreed to be based out of London through July 2020 to help build “local” infrastructures internationally. While Viktoria will have a global remit, she will also spend a considerable amount of time in the United States this year and move to New York next summer. Her first day will be next Monday, September 9th, and the entire TIME Sales team will report directly into her.
Given the pace of change the marketing ecosystem is undergoing today, it is important that we employ multiple approaches to how we engage with our audiences as well as provide our partners with innovative solutions to their marketing objectives. To that extent, Marketing will be guided by three incredible leaders, each of whom will focus on important disciplines within our organization, ranging from supporting our partners to positioning our brand in the marketplace and how it is marketed to evolving and reimagining the consumer experience itself.
Susanna Schrobsdorff will assume dual roles as Senior Vice President, Partnerships as well as Executive Editor. Amid enormous changes at TIME over the past few years, Susanna has led many of our most successful marketing efforts, helped launch numerous new franchises and partnerships, and served as the key liaison between our editorial and business teams. Susanna brings to these tasks nearly 8 years of experience at TIME. After spending most of her career on the editorial side, she has proven herself an adept marketer with strong partner relationships. In her new role she will continue to act as liaison between the editorial and business teams to ensure that the marketing ideas we bring our partners align with the broader vision of the organization and always respect the trust that is our greatest asset. She will also continue to write her column whenever she can.
Radhika Prakash is joining TIME as Senior Vice President, Brand & Content Marketing. Radhika comes most recently from BlackRock where she was the Global Head of Content Strategy & Media. Prior to that she was the Head of Brand & Creative Strategy at Pinterest and also held roles at L’Oreal, Elizabeth Arden and Unilever. At TIME, Radhika will be leading brand strategy, brand storytelling and custom content. In a crowded media space, coherently defining and communicating our unique positioning will be ever-more critical. Radhika’s remit is to help define TIME’s consumer value proposition to ensure this permeates throughout our organization as well as via consumer marketing, our go-to-market strategies and the unique approach our custom content studio will provide partners. Her first day was last week so please feel free to reach out and introduce yourself if you have not already!
Maya Draisin will be joining TIME as Senior Vice President, Progress Marketing. Maya joins us from Conde Nast where she was the VP, Marketing overseeing numerous brands and categories, ranging from WIRED to The New Yorker to Vanity Fair and Teen Vogue. She was also one of the co-founders of The Webby Awards and recognized by Katie Couric as one of the “Women Who Should Be Famous!” Maya will play a leading role in diversifying our current offerings as well as developing new ones – for example, as we evolve Time for Kids from solely a classroom resource to a consumer model that can be experienced at home. She will also help us evolve our relationship with consumers, ensuring our approach to marketing is seamlessly integrated into new experiences. Her first day will be Monday, September 30th.
As our business organization continues to evolve, we will be taking the following approach to streamlining it:
Define Aggregate Structure
Define Departmental Structure
Define Process
These four leaders are the foundation of the new aggregate structure for Sales & Marketing. Viktoria, Susanna, Radhika and Maya have already begun to recruit the most innovative, inventive and creative thinkers to TIME and will be eager to learn from and partner with you as we build our future together. More to come soon!
Thank you again for all of your hard work! We will distribute a revised organizational chart surrounding these changes shortly.
Keith
