The board has just welcomed its newest member, chief marketing officer Jeremy Schwartz, and will be asking him how he plans to reverse the trend of falling circulations that has hit its publications as the recession digs in. Schwartz will be keen to make a positive impact.
His arrival has been a long time coming - NI started its search for a chief marketing officer last June - and the decision to hire Schwartz, who will work across the company's portfolio of titles, which includes The Sun, The Times and News of the World, could be viewed as a little left-field.
While he is unwilling to talk in detail about his plans for the NI portfolio until his feet are firmly under the table, Schwartz acknowledges that he is joining at a difficult time as readers migrate online and ad revenue falls. He has set himself the goal of 'developing growth while all around is in turmoil'. Described by people who have worked with him as having copious energy and enthusiasm, he may have to draw on these reserves, given that NI, like all News Corp divisions, is known for its tough culture and focus on delivery.
Best known for his time in senior marketing roles at Sainsbury's, Coca-Cola and L'Oréal, Schwartz dropped off the marketing radar in 2005 when he set up branded food and drink company Conival, which launched a range of fresh soups and desserts with chief Marco Pierre White under the Glorious! brand name.
People who know Schwartz say this was a typical career move. Described as a 'bit of an entrepreneur', he has a reputation for big ideas and Conival was one of them. He decided to set up his own business because he felt it was important to have commercial knowledge and an understanding of business strategy in order to be an effective marketer, and describes the development of the brand from a blank piece of paper to a fully fledged product with typical enthusiasm.
Conival's first product launch, a range of omega-3-enriched drinks called Sparky, failed to take off, but Glorious! has started to see some success. 'Small things can make a big difference to consumers. You need to make a brand mean something - Glorious! means something, the word complements what the brand stands for,' says Schwartz, admitting that Sparky was, in retrospect, the wrong name for a yoghurt-based drink.
Aside from his entrepreneurial streak, Schwartz has experience of working with big brands and big budgets. During his stint at Sainsbury's, he oversaw a £40m marketing spend and credits his work at the supermarket as one of his greatest achievements. 'The goal was to bring back 3m customers,' he says. 'At the time this seemed impossible, but now the company has about 5m new customers. With the right strategy, seemingly impossible goals can be delivered.'
That said, some critics argue that he hasn't yet stuck with a brand long enough to see a strategy through to its conclusion, so cannot take credit for long-term results. Schwartz admits to having regrets in his career and, although he clearly learned a lot working at Sainsbury's, he wasn't around to see the roll-out of the 'Try something new today' strapline. The Jamie Oliver-backed campaign, which has been a great success, launched a few months after he left.
He also admits to regretting leaving Conival before the Glorious! brand had gained any real momentum; when asked why he decided to depart at such a crucial moment, he says the time had simply come for the company to be merged with its manufacturers. More funds were needed and the deal was agreed.
More evidence of his enthusiasm comes when he talks about his belief in the customer. He argues that one of the biggest failings of any brand is the delegation of customer insight. He is insistent that it should be handled at the top of any business for it to be properly absorbed into company policy. 'At Sainsbury's, the most important thing I did was listen to consumers,' says Schwartz. 'I sat in on focus groups listening to what they wanted. Too often a brand is more concerned with what it wants to give customers, rather than what a customer wants from it.'
While Schwartz's time at Sainsbury's did not leave him able to take credit for 'Try something new today', there was one campaign with which he was closely associated - its 'Active Kids' scheme, now long-established in the supermarket's drive to help improve children's physical health.
The project was ambitious and brave, but Schwartz's involvement in a corporate social responsibility scheme promoting the welfare of children was perhaps no surprise, given what he does in his spare time. Feeling something needed to be done to prevent children dying from malaria, he set up the charity Against Malaria with a friend. Operating online, it encourages people to take part in sponsored swimming events, which have, to date, raised nearly £2m to buy mosquito nets.
Aside from Sainsbury's, Schwartz's CV includes a spell as divisional marketing director at Coca-Cola for North Western Europe before his remit was widened to cover the whole of Europe. His final two years there were spent as European innovation director, where he developed the Vanilla and Lemon Coke variants.
Schwartz also had a European marketing remit at L'Oréal, where he worked for four years, taking a job as group product manager for haircare in the UK and France in 1993, then rising to overall marketing director, leading one insider to note how good he is 'at getting top jobs'. In the latter role he was responsible for the full L'Oréal range and oversaw Elvive's UK launch.
'A global perspective helps me relate to what people want. I have been able to find patterns and a methodology that works,' says Schwartz, who describes his approach to marketing as using a 'political model'. He likes to present a hypothesis to consumers to better understand their thinking and approach to brands. 'I'll ask a customer: "How would you relate to this?" It is a method used by politicians like Blair and Obama and it's from these conversations that you get the best ideas,' he says.
Coining some dated management-speak, some colleagues describe Schwartz as a 'blue-sky thinker'. He will certainly need to find that patch of blue behind the dark cloud descending over the publishing sector if he is to make his mark at NI. After all, ultimately, big ideas are not remembered unless they produce big results.