MCN shakes up leadership, unveils new positioning

Josh McDonnell
By Josh McDonnell | 22 October 2018
 
Mark Frain

Multi Channel Network (MCN) has revealed multiple senior appointments and staff exits as the company prepares to separate from Network Ten. It's also created a new brand and market positioning.

The four key executive appointments include the replacement for current CEO Mark Frain's previous chief sales officer role.

Current national sales director Nick Young takes CEO Mark Frain's former chief sales officer role. The promotion sees Young managing sales across the entire MCN portfolio including TV, digital, sport and the company's digital out of home (OOH) assets.

Other internal key appointments include Suzie Blinman corporate development director moving to chief customer and commercial officer.

Nev Hasan will manage MCN’s new Advanced Advertising team as director, while Naomi Edney will assume the role of director of centralised trading, with her role now covering end-to-end sales solutions from brief to billing. Hasan was previously national digital sales director.

As part of the restructure, long-serving and senior members of the executive team have also exited the business, including national director for marketing and client solutions Paul MacGregor. MacGregor had been with the business for 11 years and was also director of MCN's Multiply division.

MCN chief technology officer Angela Goodsir, who had a 18-year stint at th business, and national director for direct and independent agencies Shae Bonney, who spent 17 years at MCN, will be departing to explore other opportunities.

In April 2014 Goodsir led the MCN team that created MCN's sales platform, Landmark. The launch brought major benefits to MCN including improved operational efficiency, scalability, revenue opportunities and the ability to support new business opportunities.

Melbourne sales director Melina Augoustakis will also be exiting the business, however, MCN has confirmed that her departure will not impact the operating of its Melbourne business, with Ben Sumpter and Richard Baxter continuing to lead the team.

“Nick, Suzie, Nev and Naomi’s passion and dedication has helped shape MCN into the leading business it is today and their expertise will help us re-shape the business to ensure improved efficiency and service to our advertisers and partners," Frain says.

“As we look to the future, we’ve made the decision to put people – whether that be our team, partners or clients – at the heart of MCN."

The business also revealed a new logo and rebranding, completed by the new head of marketing and communications Sarah Tucker, alongside MCN's creative agency Joy.

MCN logo newNew MCN logo

At a press briefing Frain said the rebrand was about marking a new positioning for the business, that would be underpinned by Foxtel, which, over the coming weeks will become the majority shareholder in the business as Ten prepares to sell its 25% stake back to News Corp.

Frain added that over the next three years, MCN expected to "aggressively accelerate" its position in the digital OOH market, as the team places greater emphasis on how it takes the assets to market.

He says the business remains confident in each area of the business but will now be taking a more people-focused approach to day-to-day operations, while also building out new programmatic and data-based technologies.

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