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Former Ignite Media Brands CEO Brian Gallagher joins SCA as chief sales officer

Gallagher

Gallagher

Veteran media industry player and former Ignite Media Brands CEO Brian Gallagher is returning to the industry a year after walking away, taking on the chief sales officer role at Southern Cross Media Group from July 15.

The move is the first senior appointment by former Network Ten CEO Grant Blackley as the new CEO the radio and regional TV owner (ASX: SCA), who recently replaced Rhys Holleran. Blackley was director of sales at Network Ten when Gallagher was strategy and development manager there in the early 2000s.

Blackley said in a statement: “I have set a refreshed and intensive focus on sales as a key priority for me as I step into the CEO role and Brian Gallagher is the right person to deliver that focus and fresh thinking across all of the group’s operations.

“We’re thrilled to have a media sales executive of Brian’s calibre and experience across both traditional and digital media join our business. He will bring to SCA a new focus on the way we operate as one sales team nationwide and we look forward to his insights into driving revenue growth across all our traditional media, integrated solutions and digital sales platforms”.

Gallagher resigned from Ignite Media Brands at the end of 2013 after Viacom International Media Network (VIMN) moved its last remaining subscription TV channels, MTV and Nickelodeon, over to MCN leading to redundancies at the group. The sales house subsequently closed in April last year after rivals MCN confirmed it has taken the account for youth website network Sound Alliance.

In an interview with AdNews in May last year, Gallagher said ““I don’t want to sell another advertising spot as long as I live,” after a cycling accident left him severely injured.

Since finishing up with Ignite Media Brands, Gallagher spent over around a year-and-a-half as director for coffee company Double Roasters Online, also working as director for data driven transmedia company Context Media.

He also previously worked for Ten as the strategy and development manager, a role he held for over five years during which he launched the channel’s ‘Business Development Unit’.

On his appointment Gallagher said: “I’m incredibly excited to join Grant and the Southern Cross Austereo team at an important stage of the company’s development. I’ll be looking to drive sales growth through innovation and capitalising on SCA’s enviable heritage as a major Australian media company. ”

Miranda Ward

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