• by Joe Mandese , October 15, 2009

Nielsen Co. Wednesday announced a reorganization of its media leadership team, establishing a new Advertiser Solutions Unit, and tapping McKinsey & Co. vet Steve Hasker to run it. Hasker, who had been a partner in McKinsey's Global Media, Entertainment and Information practice, was named president of Media Product Leadership and Advertiser Solutions. He reports jointly to Nielsen Chairman-CEO David Calhoun and Nielsen Executive Vice President Itzhak Fisher, who is responsible for global product leadership, emerging businesses, and strategic planning.

Nielsen said Hasker will oversee direct strategy and development of all its media products and services, including measurement of television, online, and mobile media as well as the company's ongoing innovation around cross-media measurement.

He will also oversee Advertiser Solutions, a new business unit focused on developing a more of a market directly from advertisers, a constituency that historically has been loath to pay directly for media research products. Nielsen said new products would focus on delivering "the right messages to the right consumers, and improve marketing effectiveness and return on investment."

As part of the reorganization, Nielsen said Hasker would work closely with Alan Gould and Ken Orkin, co-CEOs of Nielsen IAG, who will head Advertiser Solutions.

It was unclear what the reorganization meant for the role of other senior Nielsen executives running the company's media products, but Nielsen-owned Adweek magazine reported that Jim O'Hara, who formerly led Media Product Leadership, is moving to Nielsen's Global Business Solutions division as the client service executive for emerging businesses.