The chief executive of one of the UK’s leading regional publishers is stepping down.
Archant this afternoon announced the resignation of its CEO Adrian Jeakings, who has led the group from deep recession six years ago into today’s “calmer waters”.
The 55-year-old Newspaper Society figurehead, pictured below, will leave at the end of the month.
“I have been chief executive for almost six years and have been considering for some time whether or not it is time for me to move on,” he said.
“Now that our new chairman, Simon Bax, has his feet under the table I have decided that now is the right time for me to step down.”
The CEO told his workforce: “It has been an honour to lead Archant through one of the most difficult periods in the company’s history, I will miss working with you and I would like to thank you all for your help and support.”
The company, which employs 1,650 people in a portfolio which includes four daily newspapers, 60 weekly papers, around 80 monthly consumer, contract and regional magazines and over 180 websites, said news of Adrian’s successor will be announced in “due course.”
Sign up for our free daily email bulletin
Follow HTFP on Twitter
Got a story? Email the Editor at
‘Your Chickens’ coming home to roost? Given the imminent half yearly statement his position is clearly untenable
Report this comment
Will this signal a change of strategy, i.e. investing in properly funded content and strategic portfolio development, rather than building up HR staffing, issuing daft diktats about coaching and constantly reminding us we need to bank ever more cash to pay for any looming tax liability?
Report this comment
I don’t suppose many of the staff will know who he is. He’s never been seen on the shop floor.
His time in charge has coincided with the destruction of quality journalism and a collapsed share price.
I wonder how we’ll cope without him.
Report this comment
Rats and sinking ships come to mind,
at least he wont be embarrassed when asked where he works anymore
Report this comment
Is he deserting a sinking ship?
Report this comment
Something for the new chief exec’s inbox, if I may: can we have a pay rise please?
We have gone three years now since my colleagues and I had any rise, however meagre, in salary. We watched with interest when the board awarded themselves pay rises a year ago and hoped this would be the trigger for our own efforts and patience to be rewarded, but the silence has been deafening. Indeed, the message has come back that no pay rise will be awarded without the chief executive’s say so.
That being the case, if the departing chief exec is not to make good on his pledge to make more people recommend Archant as a place to work with an unexpected act of largesse, could the new one address the issue please, as a matter of urgency?
I am tired of talk of “banking cash” and putting aside money for “our” tax liabilities and even more tired of telling my eight-year-old son I can’t afford to pay for him to go on end of year school trips which his friends are gleefully heading away on. Time for a change at the top in more than one sense, one feels….
Report this comment
“Calmer waters”, absolute drivel!
Report this comment
There are plenty of journos deserting sinking ships not just Archant.
Some of them are talented youngsters who can’t stand the poor management and they head for PR jobs.
Report this comment
This is the guy paid a third of a million last year yet who never speaks to the staff and only visits the branch offices once a year to brief the team then scuttles away soon as he has said what he has come to say,hardly enigmatic leadership.
His legacy?,dreadful copy sales with readers at an all time low,god awful looking weeklies full of page after page of badly designed ads all crammed in together,dumbed down editorial mainly reader generated,demoralised staff,the little matter of HMRC hanging over them and the laughably bad Mustard tv,yep,”my work here is done”
Report this comment
No mention in his farewell comments of the three separate occasions during his 12 years at Archant when the editorial dept has been needlessly butchered by the bean counters, and dozens of long-serving experienced journalists axed.
Report this comment