The restructure was pushed through by the ad director, Neil Hurman, and the new display ad director, Dominic Carter, less than a month after Carter's appointment. It will slash the number of managers within the display ad department from 16 to eight and has already resulted in the departure of the head of magazines, Jane Candlish, who was said to be in the running for Carter's position.
MGN's head of classified advertising, Alison Coggan, is also leaving the company. She will be replaced by Gary Williams, who was formerly the head of trading. Williams himself was tipped as a contender for the role of display ad director.
Williams' old role will be consolidated into Allan's position, as will Carter's old post as the head of client services.
The display management structure is expected to be finalised by the end of the month, with MGN adopting a similar system to that currently used by The Mail on Sunday. This "buddy" system pairs sales executives from the magazine and newspaper teams. These teams can then cover for one another to provide a more consistent service to clients.
Allan has been at Associated Newspapers since 1991, when he joined the Daily Mail as an agency sales executive from News Group Newspapers. Allan was hired by Mike Ironside, who is now the managing director on The Mail on Sunday.
"We have embarked on a fairly bold structure which we very much see as the next phase of moving the ad department at MGN forward," Hurman said.
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