Wednesday, December 4, 2002
JIM MESKAUSKAS joins Underscore as Chief Strategic Officer. A veteran of both traditional and interactive media, Meskauskas was formerly with Sharpe Partners where he served as Media Director and has planned and bought media for such clients as Burger King, Nestle, Sprint and BankAmerica. Meskauskas is a contributing columnist at MediaPost.
DENISE SOOHOO also joins Underscore as Director of Media Services. A well-recognized member of the New York media community, SooHoo started her career at TBS Media Management, a traditional media buying firm. An early entrant into the interactive marketing space, SooHoo has held media positions at Messner Vetere Berger McNamee Schmetterer/Euro RSCG and Blue Marble ACG.
The New York Times announced that LYDIA REYNOLDS, Executive Director of the newspaper's Planning Department, has been named Vice President, Strategic Planning, effective immediately. Prior to joining The Times in 1987, Reynolds worked for John Blair & Co. and MMT Sales, television and radio representation firms in New York.
Stephen Killeen, head of Terra Lycos SA's U.S. operation has quit after nearly two years in the latest of a series of management shake-ups since the Spanish Internet media giant's inception. MARK STOEVER, formerly Global General Manager of Media Products, on Wednesday replaced Killeen as Executive Vice President in charge of the U.S. business. Stoever is the third executive to oversee the U.S. operations of the company that was formed in 2000 when Madrid's Terra Networks acquired U.S.-based Lycos.
Separately, Terra Lycos hired CHARLES THEISS, who was formerly in charge of advertising for CNN's interactive group and business development, to the newly created position of U.S. Vice President of Sales.
DENNIS J. FITZSIMONS, Tribune Company President and Chief Operating Officer, has been elected Chief Executive Officer by the company’s Board of Directors. Fitzsimmons was elected to the Tribune Board of Directors in May 2000 and became Tribune president and chief operating officer in July 2001.
Infinity Broadcasting has appointed three new executives to oversee its radio stations in the eastern, central and western regions of the country. Effective immediately, KEN O'KEEFE has been named Executive Vice President, Eastern Region. O'Keefe was most recently President and Chief Executive Officer of NewVen Partners, LLC, a private investment and consulting firm specializing in the media and telecommunications industries. Previously, O'Keefe was President and Chief Operating Officer of the Clear Channel Radio Group, responsible for all operations for 1,170 radio stations across the country.
CLANCY WOODS will assume oversight of the three regions. Most recently he was Vice President/Market Manager for Infinity Broadcasting's Phoenix stations, with oversight of KOOL-FM, KZON-FM and KMLE-FM. Previously, he was Vice President/Market Manager for AMFM, Inc.'s Phoenix radio stations, with oversight of eight AM and FM properties. Before that, Woods was co-founder and Chief Operating Officer for the Radio Marketing Group, a company that represented national packaged goods and consumer products to the radio industry.
BRIAN ONGARO is a 20 year broadcasting veteran who will work with Woods to oversee the three regions. Recently Ongaro served as Executive Vice President/ Market Manager for AMFM, Inc., where he successfully brought together six radio stations from three separate ownerships and was instrumental in consolidating operations for the stations into one cluster. Before that, he was Executive Vice President/ Market Manager for Chancellor Media.
JEAN POOL, President of Operations at WPP Group's MindShare, has resigned her job and expects to move to Interpublic Group of Cos.' Universal McCann as Executive Vice President and Director of North American Operations, a new position.
EDIE EMERY has been promoted to Senior Account Director in the Washington office of Goodman Media International, Inc. She joined Goodman Media International in 2000 as an Account Executive and was promoted to Account Manager in 2001. Emery also has worked on such other accounts as The Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, The New Republic, "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," Hedrick Smith Productions, Feld Entertainment, Paul Alexander's Man of the People: The Life of John McCain, and Americans for the Arts.
i-Frontier, a Philadelphia-based online advertising agency that was purchased by Seattle-based Avenue A Inc. this week, just hired an Associate Media Director, DEBRIANA OBARA. Obara joins the company after leaving ID Media, the direct media arm of DraftWorldwide and Initiative Media in NYC (parent company IPG). She will be working with i-Frontier's cleints, most notably Schering Plough, AstraZeneca and Wyeth.
GABRIELLE SCHUELER has joined the Client Services team at COREMedia Systems, Inc. as Client Services Representative. Most recently she was a media buyer for New York-based Razor & Tie, a direct marketer of CD compilations. CHRISTOPHER KRAUS has also been promoted tp Senior Developer/Business Analyst. He joined CORE in 1995 after working at Media Direct Partners/Western Direct.
ANNE FINN has been promoted to Senior Vice President / Consumer Marketing, Magazine Publishers of America (MPA). Finn had been Vice President / Consumer Marketing since joining the MPA in November 2000.
Rodale Inc., a publisher of information on healthy, active lifestyles, announced this week that HEATHER ROBERTS has been named Chicago Sales Representative for Organic Style and OG (formerly Organic Gardening) magazines. Roberts most recently served as an Account Manager at Mountain Sports Media in Chicago where she was responsible for advertising sales for Ski, Skiing, Freeze, TransWorld, Snowboarding and SnoWorld magazines, three of the company’s websites and a trade publication. Prior to that, she was a Print Planner for Carat Press developing print campaigns and promotional programs for direct response clients.
