• by Sara Guaglione , December 2, 2016

The Washington Post has hired Scot Gillespie to becomes its first chief technology officer.

Gillespie will manage The Post's engineering team and will be responsible for overseeing its publishing platform, Arc, which the publication migrated onto last year and hopes to license to develop a lucrative revenue stream.

Gillespie will report to Shailesh Prakash, chief information officer and vice president of digital product development. Gillespie will take on the new role starting January 3.

In a statement, Frederick J. Ryan, Jr., publisher and CEO of The Washington Post emphasized the important partnership “between news, engineering and product” at The Post,as well as “ongoing experimentation and innovation throughout the organization.”

“In recent years, The Washington Post has focused on transforming into a growing, world-class media and technology company,” he stated.

<pThe Postis owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who has previously described a vision for the media company that integrates technology with its journalism.

“As technology continues to change the landscape at an unprecedented pace, The Post will stay ahead of the curve by continuing to invest in highly skilled technology and engineering talent,” Ryan added.

Gillespie was previously VP of engineering at industrial supply company W. W. Grainger.

“I look forward to the opportunity to help further evolve and differentiate the product suite and create unique value for customers with the Arc technology platform,” Gillespie said in a statement.

The Post also announced that Prakash will “deepen” The Post's ties with technology partners going forward, as well as outline The Post

's “expanding product and technology roadmap over a longer time horizon.”

He will also work more closely with the Audience Development and Data Science teams to help grow

The Post’s audiences.