David Montgomery has been named as the new chief executive of regional publisher Local World after Steve Auckland announced his resignation.
Steve joined the then newly-created company as chief executive at the start of the year having previously occupied the same role with Northcliffe Media.
He has now decided it is a “good time to move on” and David, previously non-executive chairman of the company, has been appointed CEO with immediate effect.
David is replaced in the chair on an interim basis by Andrew Wilson of Artefact Partners, one of LW’s shareholders.
David Montgomery, left, with departing chief executive Steve Auckland at the launch of Local World last November
Said Andrew: “We are grateful to Steve for his work through the first months of Local World in guiding a smooth transition of ownership as well as optimising the performance of our operations.
“The Board is encouraged by the performance to date of the new company and is united behind David Montgomery and the executive team in seizing the opportunity for Local World to re-invigorate UK local media with a transformation strategy, underpinned by investment in technology and people.”
Steve said: “Thanks to everyone who has supported me over the last two and a half years. It’s been an amazing time; I just can’t believe it’s gone so quickly.
“I now leave a business with a great vision and an even more talented team of leaders to deliver it.
“I always said that people are the most valuable resource to any business. We’ve been able to assemble a highly skilled, experienced and motivated team who have outperformed the local media business making Local World even more desirable to investors and employees.
“It’s been an honour and a pleasure to work with them. With David assembling a new central management team, it’s a great time for me to move on.”
Steve took over as managing director of Northcliffe Media in March 2011 after Michael Pelosi stood down, having previously been managing director of the freesheet Metro for nine years and boss of Yorkshire Post Newspapers before that.
While at Northcliffe he appointed a swathe of new editors and assembled a new-look senior management team, some of whom then accompanied him to Local World.
However the departure of two his key lieutenants, Rich Mead and Karen Wall, in a previous management shake-up announced in July, sparked industry speculation about his future.
In an email to colleagues, Steve said his departure left “no ambiguity” about who was running the company.
Friday’s announcement came less than 24 hours after Steve spoke at last night’s launch of the new second edition of the book ‘What Do We Mean By Local?.’
Industry leaders who attended the event said Steve had given no indication of his forthcoming departure, either in the speech or during the drinks reception afterwards.
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Live by the sword, die by the sword….
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I wish Steve Auckland the very best for the future. In my opinion, he got the best from his staff when at Yorkshire Post Newspapers by being so positive and rewarding excellence. (For example, giving an extra day holiday for a 100% attendance record). He also made himself known to staff and could often be seen walking round the building, being very approachable. Unlike at Johnston Press, you felt valued when working under him.
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It’s a real shame. He has been good to work for and i wish him well.
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A good boss Steve who had a lot of respect within the rank and file. Talked straight, listened and minimal management “bs”. Drove us hard but the work was always recognised.
OK, it’s still challenging and tough, but there can’t be many better companies to be with at the moment thanks to the endeavours of Steve and a dedicated workforce who still care about newspapers and our industry.
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Unlucky for anyone working at Local World. Good news for keyboard warriors with no training and a gripe they want to air in public though…
http://htfpnew.adaptive.co.uk/2013/news/union-boss-hits-out-at-chilling-montgomery-vision/
Although Montgomery has been the de facto boss if not the de jure boss for some time now, by all accounts. Look out for OneworldHeadBook and OneWorldTube.
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This was bound to end in tears.The leadership of Local World has been chaotic and dysfunctional for some time. It is Montgomery’s show now but let’s remember that this is the man ousted from his last job at MECOM by his own shareholders. Hard to see this one being a happy ending and probably yet another regional press example of the wrong person going and the wrong person staying.
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Under Steve Auckland the Yorkshire Post won Newspaper of the Year three times in the NS Awards and the advertising and design departments also excelled. Don’t see JP titles winning much these days.
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This was inevitable. God help the staff – my (fortunately for me) former colleagues!
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Companies will be queuing to scoop Steve up – he is too accomplished a media man to be on the fringe, a long and high achieving career and masses of experience – watch this space!
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Is this the same Steve Aukland that told the staff at one local paper 3 years ago that mobile apps ‘are pointless’? Is this the same Steve Aukland that admitted in the very same meeting that he ‘dosent have time’ to read the local papers he visits?
Good riddance. By introducing products into Local world such as ‘OurTube’ and ‘FamilyBook’ has dragged a once proud newspaper group to be a laughing stock in the communities they serve.
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In answer to Biller’s earlier post….nope – not the same – this item is about Steve Auckland…
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Steve will be badly missed. He’s a straight-up guy who gets how to run a newspaper business. Takes tough decisions when needed but essentially lets good people get on with doing their jobs well. Good luck to him in whatever he does next. I can’t imagine it’ll be long before a new role emerges.
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Bean Counter,
Just wondered. Everyone seems to talk of such praise yet ignors the fact that moral is at an all time low, people are fed up of the direction of the company and worried about the future.
Take the Northampton Clown as a good example:
“Hey guys, we haven’t made any money off this story or sold many more papers, but we got 800k clicks from across the world on one story, and people read it for free!”
Auckland has driven the current business model, refusing to even consider paywalls and de-valuing the business to such an extent that now the ultimate goal for everyone is to see how many people can get our product for free, rather than buy it. Great.
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You live by the sword, you die by the sword.
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I also notice all the comments from people about Auckland’s days in the YEP – over 11 years ago………. wake up people, the world has changed in 11 years, newspapers were still (Fairly) bright and good places to work, there was money, investment, it was good times. Those were the days when Northcliffe (Sold for 53 million in 2012) was worth over a billion pounds. You show me a senior manager who wasn’t positive and chucking money around.
Unfortunatly they were chucking it around in the wrong places. Rather than competing with Yell.com and Autotrader etc they let their guard slip and their market share went with that. If Steve Auckland is so brilliant, he should have seen this and fought against it – I wonder how the YEP motors and classified sections are doing 11 years after he left and the internet companies ate their lunch.
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It was not that long ago Steve Auckland was saying he was going to transform the regional press with his exciting ideas for reinvention. Where are those ideas? What happened to them? All I’ve seen is cost cutting and a whole bunch of people running scared.
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It’s now got to the stage that NO heavy weights remain in the business (such as it’s become).
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Media watcher
Projects like ‘OurTube’ – a video streaming service (Hmmmmmm) and ‘FamilyBook’ – a social media site (Hmmmmm) are those same exciting ideas. I kid you not.
All UGC, all copied and all laughable.
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Come on people, give the man a break….if nothing else, he gave us the Steve Dorkland farrago….extremely comic and the greatest single example yet of the cold, hard fact that none – none – of the senior people in regional media understand and embrace what a game changer the internet is. They can talk strategies and remodelling until they’re blue in the face: meanwhile, on a university campus somewhere a 19-year-old is working something up on their iMac which will be light years ahead of anything these 50+ dinosaurs could ever hope to dream of. The wrong people are running regional media for the wrong reasons – maximum profit, be it for their own pockets or shareholder ‘value’.
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Bean counter – why so pedantic? Childish
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what made me laugh was the idea that Local World was a new dawn and SA would be able to run it as he wished, unencumbered by the past. Now he’s acknowledging that DMGT allowed him to run a business that he’d wish to run in the way he’d want too. In other words, nothing was different, apart from the name over the door and his palm was crossed with silver to get it (Northcliffe) off DMGT’s to do list.
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Dunkin is right on the money. It’s hard to repose much confidence in the lofty pronouncements about ‘new’ technology when they missed the boat re. the web 15 years and more ago. LW belatedly woke up to the fact that the thisis websites were crap, and then blithely replaced them with something even worse. Trying to get the management of an organisation the size of LW to embrace change is like trying to turn round a fleet of tankers – I said ‘tankers’, madam.
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For a number of years I worked at Northcliffe, mostly editing the weekly modern dance supplement for the Sevenoaks Chronicle. During that time I only met Lord Auckland once. I remember it well. I gave him a fiver and said: Cod and chips; mushy peas too.
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