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Newspaper publisher to create single digital unit

The managing director of Trinity Mirror’s national digital business is to head up a single unit which will see the company’s national and regional digital operations merged.

Chris Ellis, who joined the company in May 2011 having previously worked at IGN Entertainment, MySpace, AOL and BT, will take on the newly created role of managing director  for Trinity Mirror Digital.

He will report to Trinity Mirror Nationals managing director Mark Hollinshead and regionals managing director Georgina Harvey.

In the company’s full year results released on Thursday, chief executive Sly Bailey said: ‘This intensive period of activity will be enabled by a new organisational structure and the creation of a new Trinity Mirror Digital consumer unit with a Group wide remit to accelerate delivery of these and other new digital  initiatives.”

In December the company introduced 20 digital roles across its regional division, which saw the company’s head of multimedia for regional titles David Higgerson appointed to a newly-created role of digital publishing director.

David will now report to Chris.

In a letter to staff Sly said the new unit was aimed at accelerating digital audience and revenue growth.

She said: “All our digital brands will retain their individual identities, but they will now benefit from a consistent company-wide approach to product management, engineering, technology and monetisation.

“We are also creating a dedicated standalone team to focus entirely on new product development and innovation. Developing and launching new nationwide digital products beyond our current footprint is key to our digital growth.

“This integrated digital structure will allow us to accelerate the launch of new products and services. It will also allow new features developed in one part of the business to be quickly shared and deployed across the group.”

Technology used for a redesign of the Daily Mirror website will be used for its regional sites.