The Brutal Truth About Change

Michael Hedges March 25, 2009 Follow on Twitter

Top rank executive shuffling can have a range of meanings. Although large organizations are notoriously resistant to change, one enduring management lesson is “change the people or they change you.”

News Corporation, various subsidiaries included, has seen recently its share of major changes near the top. COO Peter Chernin is soon to leave Rupert Murdoch’s side after more than 20 years and putting Fox television on the worldwide map.  Shuffling on the Hollywood side of News Corp has, so far, been limited to making room for Mr. Murdoch. Elsewhere, James Murdoch – The Younger – was elevated to CEO for Europe and Asia in mid 2008. Considerable ink and paper has been consumed speculating on James Murdoch replacing Chernin in the short-term and The Elder in the long-term. All of this creates vacuums and opportunities.

News Corp named Jan Koeppen as COO Europe Asia (March 19) with responsibility for finance. He comes from Boston Consulting Group (BCG) where he was a partner and co-director of the media practice. He reports to James Murdoch, based in London. Days later local reports said BCG people were “crawling all over” News International, the UK newspaper side of News Corp.

As James Murdoch moved to take executive control over News Corps European television interests Tom Mockridge, Sky Italia CEO, became CEO for European television. Marty Pompadur, Chairman of News Corp Europe, was downgraded.  Also upgraded last year was Sky Italia  number two Mark Williams to CFO News Corp Europe and Asia.

But that, too, would change when News Corp increased its holding in the distressed German pay TV operator Premiere. Williams was named interim CEO at Premiere in September 2008, taking leave from his position as CFO at News Corp Europe Asia less than a year into that job. He replaced Michael Börnicke who resigned for personal reasons. News Corp had grown “impatient,” say media watchers.

It was more than impatience that brought Williams to Premiere. There was that unfortunate matter of misstating subscriber levels by about one million. That led to CFO Alexander Teschner’s resignation just weeks after Herr Börnicke disappeared.

Williams, in damage-control mode, brought in three executives from Sky Italia immediately. Giovanni Brunelli was brought in as SVP Customer Operations. Marcello Maggioni joined as SVP sales and marketing and Gaetano Pannito as VP Sales.

“Our immediate focus is to improve both customer satisfaction and our rate of new customer acquisition,” said new-to-the job Williams in October. “These appointments take advantage of the specific expertise and experience of these executives to achieve those objectives.”

In the Premiere boardroom, former SBS Broadcasting CEO Markus Tellenbach was appointed chairman (March 18). He replaces interim chairman Richard Roy who replaced Richard Grosskopf who departed in February.

Executive changes at Premiere have continued. So far three Premiere executives have moved on in the last week as the pay TV company prepares a bit of a relaunch this summer. Martin Calsow, VP fiction, Stephan Buller, VP Customer Relation Management, and Caroline Kuchta, Director Promotion and Formats, have headed for the door. Buller’s job has been handed to Emanuele Tonini from Sky Italia. The two other jobs haven’t yet been filled.

The same impatience was felt in the early days at Sky Italia.  The pay TV service was launched in 2003 with Tom Mockeridge in charge, Mark Williams COO, Osvaldo de Santis General Manager, David Bouchier Programming Manager, Tullio Camiglieri Communications Manager and Giovanni Bruno Sports Director. In 2004 commercial director Giuseppe Borea clashed with Mark Williams and was fired. Human resources director Roberto Maglione quit. Bouchier left in 2005 and de Santis moved to the Rome office of 20th Century Fox.

Change agents never have an easy job, particularly in challenging market conditions. Consultants come and go but chief executives and appointed teams show up everyday. Too, they must act quickly. That requires – literally and figuratively – speaking the same language. Sometimes that means invoking every change agents brutal truth (learned early by this writer): “I don’t know if you can or can’t do the job and I don’t have time to figure it out.”

Tom Mockeridge remains in charge at Sky Italia, which is, according to Italian media watchers, on war footage with public broadcaster RAI and Mediaset.  (Update on the Italian media wars here)