DC Thomson has promoted Rebecca Miskin to oversee its previously siloed media portfolio in the new role of chief executive.
Miskin joined the 116-year-old company in summer 2020 as chief strategy and transformation officer, after a career including five years as digital strategy director at magazine publisher Hearst and three years as chief executive of media venture Gloo Networks.
According to DC Thomson, Miskin has been “instrumental” in developing a plan to consolidate its various media properties in order to “create a scalable media company powered by data, technology and talent”.
The company, which has its headquarters in Dundee, owns a collection of Scottish regional newspapers and is famous for publishing the Beano comic, which has grown into the multimedia Beano Studios.
It has grown through several acquisitions this century, including Puzzler Media in 2005, Aberdeen Journals in 2006, Shortlist Media (now The Stylist Group and chaired by Miskin since 2018) in 2015, three Scottish radio stations in the late 2010s and craft and B2B magazine publisher Aceville in 2018.
Christopher Thomson, chairman of DC Thomson, said: “Rebecca’s appointment as CEO is a crucial part of our transformation strategy, which looks afresh at how we can inform, entertain and delight audiences now and in the future. She will be supported by an experienced leadership team drawn from across the group to create engaging content and experiences that truly connect with our audiences.
“As a board, we are investing in technology and talent to support this plan, which will make sure we have the right skills and experience across our media business to create the engine for growth.”
Miskin’s remit will not cover the genealogy business FindMyPast, the cloud computing services company Brightsolid, or the investment side of DC Thomson.
Her appointment coincides with the departure of the editorial chief of DC Thomson’s newspapers, Richard Neville, which was first reported by . Neville will move to an advisory role, and the newsroom transformation project he was leading, Apollo, will be overseen by chief transformation officer Tom Miller.
A DC Thomson spokesperson said: “The DC Thomson board would like to thank Richard for his incredible contribution over the past 18 years, not least the outstanding work he has done as the architect of our newsroom transformation project Apollo and securing our position within the Google News Initiative.”
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