F.Y.I.

Inkl hires Bronwen Clune as VP of growth

Bundled news subscription platform, Inkl, has hired Bronwen Clune as VP of growth.

The announcement:

Bundled news subscription platform Inkl has appointed former journalist and Guardian columnist Bronwen Clune as VP of Growth.

As part of her new role Clune will be responsible for rolling out new products for Inkl aimed at helping journalists build sustainable incomes after recent media job losses, including work for freelancers.

“I’ve always been passionate about quality journalism and making sure that it survives the upheaval we’ve seen in recent years,” Clune said. “I very much see this role as an opportunity to make a difference to the future of journalism and I’m determined we make it a sustainable one – something advertising hasn’t delivered for some time.”

Inkl allows consumers to access news from more than 100 publishers on its platform for a subscription fee of $15/month, including The New York Times, Foreign Affairs, The Telegraph, The Independent,The Economist, Financial Times and Bloomberg.

Clune has a unique background across innovation and media, having worked on both the news and startup side, including growing Victorian tech unicorn Culture Amp throughout the US, and founding one of the first media startups in Australia. She’s been a long-time respected commentator on media and innovation globally, something she will be doing more of again in her new role.

Inkl CEO, Gautam Mishra says the appointment comes at an interesting time for Inkl, and the broader news industry, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic which has seen an increase in digital news consumption concurrent with an unprecedented global drop in advertising revenue.

Inkl’s revenue has doubled in the last year, and 55% of that growth has been since the start of the COVID pandemic in March.

“The pandemic has accelerated the urgency for us to find a new business model for the news industry away from advertising, and that’s to get people to pay for news – something that most readers are not used to doing online,” Mishra said.

Clune said since the start of the pandemic there are signs of consumer habits changing as people are seeking out news from multiple sources and want an aggregated view of what is happening around the world.

“People are desperate to understand what’s happening in other parts of the world as a result of COVID, and from sources they can trust,” Clune said.

“It can be cost prohibitive, as well as impractical, when you have to subscribe to multiple news sources, so a product like inkl, which can be understood as ‘Spotify for news’, has an important contribution to make in both building a sustainable news industry and keeping the public informed.”

Source: Inkl media release

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