• by Joe Mandese , August 9, 2006

In a sign of where its biggest cuts may come from, debt ridden research and publishing company VNU Tuesday named the head of its business publications unit to run a corporation-wide belt-tightening program. Michael Marchesano, who has been head of VNU Business Media USA, the unit that operates trade publications such as Adweek, Billboard and The Hollywood Reporter, was moved into the new position of executive vice president and chief transformation officer, responsible for leading VNU's so-called Project Forward initiative.

Marchesano, who reports to interim VNU CEO Rob Ruijter, will preside over a far-reaching program to reduce costs and improve margins for VNU's operating units, which also include market researcher ACNielsen and media researcher Nielsen Media Research. The three-year program, which began before VNU was acquired by a group of private equity firms and turned into a privately held company, was projected by Wall Street analysts to have a goal of reducing about 7 percent of the company's overall workforce. To date, most of the cuts have come from the trade publishing operations, which have been delivering the weakest margins for VNU as they face a lackluster advertising market for traditional B-to-B print advertising sales.

"Mike is an outstanding leader with demonstrated experience in achieving wide-scale cost efficiencies," stated Ruijter, who is also VNU's CFO. "In his former role as head of VNU Business Media USA, he continued to grow margins in our trade publications business despite a sluggish advertising economy, while continuing to innovate and transition to a new business model to generate future growth."

A long-time publishing industry executive, Marchesano joined VNU in 1999 as president of Bill Communications. He recently presided over VNU's acquisition of Radio & Records and its merger into the Billboard Information Group, a move that sparked a new round of layoffs this week. According to a report in VNU's Mediaweek, 26 of Billboard's editorial, production and publishing staffers were let go.

VNU also announced that is doing some hiring, naming Robert Krakoff to succeed Marchesano as president-CEO of its U.S. business media operations. Krakoff has been chairman-CEO of Blantyre Partners, Inc., a media industry consulting firm.