Philips, who is News Corp's youngest senior executive, is in charge of identifying acquisition targets and pursuing Murdoch's strategy of growing the media giant's online operations.
The former McKinsey & Company consultant joined News Corp just over a year ago and has been advising Murdoch, who is chairman and CEO, on plans to spend as much as $2bn on further internet acquisitions.
News Corp has made a string of online acquisitions in the last 12 months. Most recently in November it paid £14.3m for Asserta Holdings, the owner of UK property website Propertyfinder.com.
Prior to that News Corp bought video game and movie website company IGN Entertainment, which owns GameSpy and Rotten Tomatoes, for $650m (£365m) and MySpace.com for $580m. It also lifted its stake in realestate.com.au to 51.5%, giving it a voting majority.
However, the internet acquisition strategy has come under fire from some quarters.
WPP's CEO Sir Martin Sorrell accused Murdoch of internet panic buying. "Rupert Murdoch, who I admire more than any other media executive... has been willing to make [internet] acquisitions almost willy-nilly," Sorrell said.
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