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Lean and mean
Some of you may remember that D C Thompson has recruited Annelies van den Belt to restore their family history businesses to profit. Van den Belt has a track record in social media most recently in Russia. She has now recruited a new brand manager Monisha Saldanha.
20 February 2014
DC Thomson Family History has appointed former head of brand extensions at Guardian News & Media Monisha Saldanha as brand director for Genes Reunited.
Taking up the position in March, Saldanha will take on overall responsibility for brand positioning, developing and driving brand strategy.
Chief customer officer Juliet Bauer said: “Monisha has a proven track record of growing profitable digital businesses and I am very confident that her skills, experience and energy will be incredibly valuable to our team.”
Saldanha added: “I am delighted to be joining Genes Reunited – a digital brand that is positioned for tremendous growth. The hundredth anniversary of the start of the World War I will no doubt inspire even more people to investigate their family history this year. I look forward to the exciting adventure ahead.”
Prior to her role at Guardian News & Media, Saldanha worked at Ebay UK and Jamie Oliver Ltd.
If D C Thomson intend to turn around a £ 2 million pa loss using social media as the direction of choice then fairly obviously these message boards are not going to be the path to salvation.
previously:
Friends Reunited to be restructured
DC Thomson will run site as a standalone business with possible outside investment as digital division focuses on genealogy
Mark Sweney theguardian.com, Wednesday 2 October 2013
Friends Reuinted
Friends Reunited, which was bought by DC Thomson for £25m in 2009, may be run as a standalone business with outside investment
Beano publisher DC Thomson is considering strategic options for social media site Friends Reunited, including bringing in an outside investor and "re-incubating" it as a standalone business.
The move follows a review of DC Thomson's digital division Brightsolid, which is home to Friends Reunited, carried out by new senior executive Annelies van den Belt.
Van den Belt, the ex-News UK and ITV senior executive, joined at the end of August as chief executive of DC Thomson division Bright Solid Online Publishing.
She said that BSOP will focus on its genealogy properties, which include findmypast.co.uk and successful Friends Reunited sub-brand genesreunited.co.uk, with the Shoreditch-based division renamed as DC Thomson Family History to become a "lean, mean family history machine".
As part of the restructure, Friends Reunited, which it acquired from ITV in 2009 for a cut-price £25m, is to be "re-incubated" as a separate business.
Van den Belt said DC Thomson remained "committed" to running the once-powerful social networking site, but that the "next phase" is best served by putting more focus on it as a standalone operation.
She said Friends Reunited, which ITV paid £170m for in 2005 only to find it rapidly outpaced by the inexorable rise of Facebook and other social networks, still has plenty of potential.
"The idea of re-incubation is you get more air, more light to develop it with an outside team [separate to DC Thomson Family History] that can look at different platforms in an agile environment," she said. "It has strong brand equity, huge data on schools and millions of users both in the UK and internationally. It is still a very valuable proposition."
Van den Belt said she has held talks with a "couple of interested parties" elsewhere within the Dundee-based media company about finding a home for Friends Reunited.
She also said that the company might look to bring in an external investor, but that no talks or approaches are in progress at this stage, and that DC Thomson is "committed to staying with Friends Reunited".
One internal possibility could be to hive Friends Reunited into IDEALondon, the innovation "hot house" established at London's Tech City as a joint venture by DC Thomson, Cisco and UCL.
The venture aims to host about 25 digital and media companies supporting those "championed by one of the key partners", which could make Friends Reunited a candidate.
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will she fix the tree? :-\ :-\
Will she fix HotMatches? :-\ :-\
Will she fix the dreaded Error Message? :-\ :-\
Will she "take care of" the RR' who has an itchy finger? :-\ :-\
Will we see any difference???????????????????
Will she earn squillions? :-|
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