A former chief financial officer with Twentieth Century Fox is to be the new chairman of regional publishing company Archant.

Simon Bax, left, is to replace Richard Jewson as chairman of Archant at the end of the month, the company announced this morning.

An expert in the digital technology field, Simon has spent most of his career in the US but has a home in North West Norfolk near Archant’s Norwich HQ.

His other previous positions have included those of chief financial officer of Pixar and of Chiat/Day, a global advertising agency.

In 2008, he co-founded and became chief executive of Encompass Digital Media Inc which grew to become an international leader in the provision of network origination services and digital media encoding services.

After growing the company to the point where it had an annual turnover of $300m and staff of more than 1,000, Simon oversaw its sale in 2012.

Mr Jewson said: “We are delighted that someone with Simon’s extensive experience of managing the impact of digital technologies in the transformation of the media and entertainment industry has decided to join us.

“I know that chief executive Adrian Jeakings and his team are excited at the opportunity to work with Simon.”

Simon is also a non-executive Director of Inmarsat Plc, the leading provider of global mobile satellite communications services, and of San Francisco-based MobiTV, a provider of premium end-to-end mobile media solutions.

He said: “I am greatly looking forward to the opportunity to work with a company which has such a deep heritage and is also committed to fully addressing the challenges of a rapidly transforming media landscape.”

Mr Jewson retires from the Board of Archant on April 30 after 32 years, 17 of them as chairman.

He had been due to retire on 31 December but stayed on after the chairman-designate, Richard Wyatt, stepped down due to ill-health.