Fairfax sales chief Tom Armstrong exits after three years
Tom Armstrong, chief revenue officer for Fairfax Media’s flagship metro division, has left the company.
Armstrong: Left Fairfax today
Armstrong’s exit comes just a few weeks after his role changed from commercial director of Fairfax Media to chief revenue officer of the metro division, which includes The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Australian Financial Review. February’s change of roles is indicated on Armstrong’s LinkedIn profile but was not publicised at the time.
According to an announcement to staff from Fairfax Media’s metro boss Chris Janz – who took the helm in mid February – Armstrong has already gone.
Janz: Said Armstrong had set up Fairfax for “the next phase”
“After three years leading our Metro Commercial team, Tom Armstrong has decided to leave the business. His last day in the office is today.
“I’d like to thank Tom for his leadership during a disruptive and transformative period in advertising. Tom delivered new directions for advertising growth with a focus on content, data-driven ad products and programmatic trading. He had positioned Fairfax well to tackle the next phase of our journey.”
In a signal that Fairfax already has a plan in place for Armstrong’s successor, Janz added in the note to staff: “An announcement on future commercial leadership will be made this week.”
Armstrong first joined Fairfax just under three years ago after a background mainly spent within the television industry, including sales roles with Viacom and Discovery Networks. He replaced Ed Harrison, who is now the boss of Yahoo7.
In a tumultuous April for Fairfax’s metro division, the company has announced a further round of job cuts aimed at saving $30m of editorial costs, which then resulted in a vote of no confidence in the process from staff.
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Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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That’s a surprise. A really savvy guy in one of the toughest gigs around. All the best Tom.
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It’s a death seat. Some very good people have had the task, most recently Ed Harrison. Fairfax is no place to be if you have any sort of cv.
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Tom, no question is a good and smart man but this is further proof anyone outside of Hywoods head has nominal to zero impact on the direction of the ship. Meanwhile, Hywood himself continues to claim victory of transformation with Domain and Stan all the while highlighting his own lack of vision, intent and enablement of the metro division under the carpet. The real potential of Fairfax that could’ve been (regardless of the domanence of Facebook and Google) has never had a chance to be properly realised.
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Chris Janz doing what many new chiefs do — bringing in his own Indians. Remains to be seen if they will do a better job than those who went before them……
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Today’s Huffington Post lead story sums up the Hywood and Janz era http://Www.huffingtonpost.com......_22044704/
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What a shame. Tom is great guy with plenty of experience, I can’t see how Fairfax will find a better replacement.
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Could Mumbrella post a piece detailing how many people are employed in Fairfax management and how many actual journalists/photographers/subeditors are left creating “content”?
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