Jim Brown, non-executive chairman of Newsquest Media Group, will retire at the end of July following a long and distinguished career in the newspaper industry.

Jim has been chairman of Newsquest Media Group since its formation in 1996, after he led the management buyout of Reed Regional Newspapers from Reed Elsevier. Newsquest was acquired by UK newspaper giant Gannett in 1999 for £904m.

He has been with the company for 17 years, serving as chief executive from April 1990 to August 2001.

His career started as a journalist, with the Ayrshire Post, and was news editing with Express Newspapers in Glasgow when he switched to management and joined Thomson Regional Newspapers in 1964 where he was a main board director.

He later joined Manchester Evening News as circulation director and chairman of two chains of newsagents shops.

He was then headhunted by Thomsons as group circulation and promotion director, and went on to become managing director of their Thames Valley Newspapers, where he was identified with the early introduction of direct input technology.

He moved to Reed Regional Newspapers in 1986 and led a management buy out of the Reed newspapers in January 1996 and the acquisition in 1997 of Westminster Press from Pearsons plc.

Since then the business has more than doubled in size and now publishes more than 300 local and regional newspapers in the UK.

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