Global rejigs sales teams

By Emma Barnett, mediaweek.co.uk, Tuesday, 07 April 2009 07:30AM

LONDON - Global Radio is reorganising its 370-strong regional sales operation into five regions and has named a new regional senior management team.

L to R: Wright, Jones, Murray, Flanagan and Lee

The five regions, which mirror the five TV regions used in commercial TV are: North, Central, Anglia, Meridian and West Country. Also, five regional managing directors have been appointed internally, Chris Jones, Anita Wright, Carla Triolo, Hugh Murray, Francis Flanagan - all of whom will report to Mark Lee, Global Radio managing director of regions.

Lee said: "The national roll-out of the Heart brand has made our brand proposition simpler to clients and we hope, by using the TV region approach, this will further help simplify regional radio sales."

Five regional managing directors have been appointed internally: Chris Jones, Anita Wright, Carlo Triolo, Hugh Murray, Francis Flanagan - all of whom will report to Mark Lee, Global Radio managing director of regions.

Ed Chalmers, trading director, John McGeough, operations director, Mike Gordon, group commercial director and Stuart Mays, director of commercial strategy

Nationally, Mike Gordon, Global Radio group commercial director, has restructured its 160-strong commercial team, resulting  in approximately 15 redundancies.

He has poached Mandy Fowler, former strategic partnership director at Zenith Optimedia, for the new role of director of strategic partnerships, reporting to Stuart Mays, director of commercial strategy.

Previously, there had been five agency sales teams, a client sales team and an interactive sales team, as well as John McGeough, trading director, and Mays, all reporting to Gordon.

McGeough retains the same role but will now hold the title of operations director. The interactive sales team remains unchanged too, headed up by the outgoing head of interactive Paul Sigaloff.

Ed Chalmers has been promoted from account director to trading director. The other three account directors, responsible for media agencies and key brands, will now report to him. The planners have been moved back into these teams, having been put into a separate unit in the last restructure. Both Sigaloff and Chalmers report to Gordon.

Mays will still have the creative team Canvas and sales development team reporting to him, while he continues to report to Gordon. However Gordon has now split sponsorship and promotions into three groups: account management, client strategy and strategic partnerships, headed respectively by Jennie Stubbs, Paige and Fowler.

This article was first published on mediaweek.co.uk