Nine has completed a restructure of its sales team as part of its plans to better meet cross-platform demands from advertisers.
The shake-up has resulted in some redundancies, including its director of sales for radio Penny Kaleta who recently joined from Macquarie Media.
As part of the new structure, director of sales for TV Richard Hunwick takes on responsibility for the TV and radio sales team, while director of digital sales Nick Young takes over Nine’s digital and publishing sales team, as well as the company's data strategy.
Nine says the structure creates Australia’s largest integrated sales team, with each state having a director of sales; Paul Brooks in Sydney, Sam Brennan in Melbourne, Rebecca Lawrie in Brisbane, Sean O’Brien in Adelaide and Clive Bingwa in Perth.
The changes come as the industry deals with the coronavirus pandemic which has weakened advertising revenue.
“There is no doubt that COVID-19 has impacted our lives and our economy in a way that few if any of us have ever seen” says Michael Stephenson, Nine’s chief sales officer.
“However, today’s changes are not driven solely by the impact of the global health crisis on our economy and our industry, rather by the need to create a structure that will allow us to create more innovative marketing platforms for new and emerging categories, to better service the needs of our clients in a more integrated fashion across television, digital, publishing and radio.
“As we navigate ourselves towards the ‘new normal’ there will be enormous opportunity for those that are willing to think differently and challenge the way things have always been done.
“We are ready. We have the most unique assets, the most senior team, and we now have a fully integrated structure that will make it even easier for our clients to use our content, data and technology to sell more of their products and services.”
Under the new structure, Nine’s group business directors will be a single point of contact for advertising partners, with each group business director having complete responsibility for a media agency buying group or independent agencies, and lead. The group business directors will have responsibility for a TV, digital, publishing and a radio sales team.
Nine+, led by Tim Rose, will be expanded to create a “super group” focusing on assisting small and medium enterprises, with direct sales teams in TV, digital, publishing and radio aligning under the Nine+ brand for a one-stop-shop for small business.
The development of Nine’s self-serve platform 9Voayger will be fast-tracked to include both radio and podcasts alongside TV and 9Now.
Meanwhile Chris Nardi, currently director of sales for publishing, moves into the newly created role of director of client partnerships for publishing, where he will oversee Nine’s team of specialists in key client verticals across travel, luxury, education, recruitment, finance, technology and classifieds.
Penny Kaleta departs after joining in December last year to lead the integration of Nine’s sales operation following its acquisition of Macquarie Media.
“Penny has been fantastic during her time at Nine. In the short time she has been with us she has fully integrated our radio team into the Nine family and reintroduced Nine radio to the market at large,” Stephenson says.
“She has done an outstanding job and she has become a great friend. I’m very sad that she will be leaving us. Our loss will be someone else’s gain and I can’t wait to see who is lucky enough to have Penny in their team.”
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