More management moves announced at ABC News today. TVNewser was sent the memo from News president David Westin announcing the elimination of one vacant position: Senior Vice President for Finance and Operations. And the addition of three new positions: Executive Director for Program Operations, Executive Director for Newsgathering Operations and Vice President for News Technology.
The moves, however, may mean cuts. In his memo Westin writes, “On the operations side, we will reduce the level of operations management and the number of operations positions overall.”
The shifting comes on the heels of the departure of Dan Renaldo who jumped to NBCU as EVP of TV production.
Click continued to read the memo…
• Earlier on TVNewser: Dave Davis joins ABC News as Westin’s #2…
Last June I wrote you about our taking a strategic look at where ABC News stands, where we are going, and what resources we will need to get there. Since then, we’ve added people and resources to our digital efforts, we created the position of “digital reporter” and assigned our first seven to posts around the world, we revamped our bureaus for both news coverage and NewsOne, we consolidated graphics in New York, we named a new Vice President for ABC News International Digital (Marcus Wilford), and I restructured senior management and the Desk.
The next step is to restructure our finance and operations area, something that Dan Renaldo was working on before he left us last month. In light of Dan’s departure, I have decided to implement much of what he was working on, but to take it a step further.
I am eliminating the position of Senior Vice President for Finance and Operations. Instead, our Vice President of Finance, Lou-Anne Walters will report directly to me and to Jim Hedges.
On the operations side, we will reduce the level of operations management and the number of operations positions overall. Our operations colleagues directly involved with programs and News Research will report up to Dave Davis through a new Executive Director for Program Operations. Graphics will now report to Alan Ives under Dave Davis. Those involved in newsgathering, the bureaus, NewsOne, and Radio will report up to Kate O’Brian through a new Executive Director for Newsgathering Operations. Our digital efforts will continue to receive their operations support from Jeff Morris and his colleagues.
In addition, I am creating a new position of Vice President for News Technology reporting to me. This person will be responsible for identifying the new technologies that are most important to transforming what we do and how we do it. He or she will then take the lead in making sure that we acquire those technologies and implement them effectively. The News Technology Vice President will also become our principal liaison with Broadcast Operations and Engineering. The Digital Bullpen and our Continuity and Crisis Management Directors will report to the new Vice President.
This new structure will streamline how we receive our finance and operations support. It will also make that support more directly responsible to those at ABC News who depend on it the most. And, it should move us forward faster and more effectively into the evolving digital world.
We will be posting the new positions created tomorrow. I hope to have the new structure fully in place in short order.
If you have questions, you can direct them to Bob Murphy, Dianne DeSevo, Maria Morales, or Keri Drobner.