The Economist Names Its First Chief Product Officer | People on the Move
New hires at Digital Trends, Informa, Quartz, Meredith and more, plus two big departures in entertainment news.

The Economist Group appointed Deepanshu Bagchee as chief product officer, charged with product management for all of the company’s digital offerings, including The Economist and the Economist Intelligence Unit. Bagchee joins from CNBC, where he spent the last decade, most recently as senior VP of product and technology.

“As our first chief product officer focussed on customer-centric digital experiences, Deep brings with him a proven track record of successful collaboration with content teams and business unit leaders to deliver innovative digital product offerings,” said Lara Boro, CEO of The Economist Group, in a statement. “Deep’s appointment underscores our commitment to investing in product and technology which will in turn underpin our wider growth ambitions.”

In addition to his role at CNBC, Bagchee has served on the board of the trade group Digital Content Next since 2017. Currently based in New York, he’ll relocate to London later this month.

Here are the rest of this week’s people on the move…

Digital Trends hired Paul Squire as news editor. Squire arrives from the New York Post, where he also served as news editor on the digital side. He’ll work remotely for now but is expected to join the New York office when it reopens.

Also joining Digital Trends, out of its Portland, Ore. headquarters, is Diana Semler as head of people. The company says Semler will run the human resources department with a focus on diversity and inclusion, career pathing, employee training and pay equity.

“This is definitely one of the oddest times to be onboarding new employees,” said Digital Trends‘ CEO, Ian Bell, in a statement. “But since we are a ‘digital first’ company, we’re fortunate that our growth doesn’t need to stop during the pandemic.”

Informa plc hired Susan Szymanski as director of business development and customer engagement within its restaurant and food group, which includes Nation’s Restaurant News, Restaurant Hospitality and Food Management magazines, among other properties. Szymanski arrives from MTG Media, where she served as VP and publisher of Plate magazine since 2017, and previously spent nearly a decade as publishing director of Nation’s Restaurant News from 2002 to 2011 in addition to numerous other roles at foodservice industry publications.

Quartz hired Karen Ho as global finance and economics reporter. As a freelance writer specializing in both business and culture, Ho has written for FiveThirtyEight, Time, GQ, Refinery29, The Outline, Interview, Glamour and The Daily Beast, among several others, and she was a Delacorte Fellow at the Columbia Journalism Review from 2017 to 2018. She started at Quartz on Monday.

At Meredith Corp., Parents magazine hired Yolanda Wikiel as food and lifestyle director, a newly created role. Wikiel previously spent 16 years at Real Simple (at the time a part of Time Inc., but now published by Meredith) in various editorial capacities, including senior editor, staff editor and fashion editor, before joining Hearst Magazines in 2016 as deputy editor of Redbook. Prior to Parents, she had served as senior editor at Airbnb Magazine since 2018.

Also joining Parents is Mary Clare Cahill as photo director, working across both Parents and Parents Latina. Cahill moves over from fellow Meredith titles Reveal and Rachael Ray In Season, where she also served as photo director. Prior to joining Meredith in 2017, Cahill was photo director at Condé Nast’s Brides and deputy photo editor at Martha Stewart Omnimedia.

At Endeavor Business Media, June Griffin, who joined the company as CMO through its acquisition of several former PennWell properties last year, is now taking on a dual role of CRO/CMO.

“[June] has a fundamental understanding of how to turn complex concepts into reality; and in this role will change the trajectory of our company in helping us pivot to a data-based model with recurring revenue and product diversity,” said CEO Chris Ferrell in a statement.

Time hired two new directors of partnerships: Beth DeVillez in Chicago and CeCe Tousey in Los Angeles. DeVillez joins from News Corp. where she served as director of Midwest sales following previous sales roles at WebMD, Quartz and Wired. Tousey joins from The Business Journals, where she spent the past six years as director of integrated partnerships.

At Arizent (formerly SourceMedia), Ryan W. Neal joined Financial Planning as technology editor. Neal arrives from InvestmentNews, where he spent the past two years as a technology reporter and columnist. Prior to that, he served as a fintech reporter at Wealth Management.

After two years at The New York Times, Sarah Jeong is once again contributing to The Verge, editor-in-chief Nilay Patel confirmed on Tuesday, adding that she’ll be writing a regular column about legal issues on social media platforms. Jeong was previously a senior writer at The Verge before leaving in 2018 to join The New York Times‘ editorial board.

Ontario-based Annex Business Media promoted Ellen Cools to editor of Canadian Biomass and interim editor of Canadian Forest Industries, filling in on the latter magazine for editor Maria Church, who is stepping away temporarily for maternity leave. Cools joined Annex Business Media in 2017 as assistant editor in its security group of publications. Prior to graduating from McGill University, she spent the summer of 2016 as an assistant editor at Folio:.

Former Billboard executive editor Nick Catucci joined influence.co, a startup whose platform allows social media influencers to market themselves to advertisers, as the editor-in-chief of nofilter, an online publication the company is launching.

Editorial director Matthew Belloni exited The Hollywood Reporter after 14 years with the publication, reportedly due to disagreements with owner Valence Media.

“Today’s announcement is the result of a series of conversations I’ve had for a few months with [Valence co-CEO] Modi [Wiczyk] about the direction at THR,” Belloni wrote in a staff memo on Monday. “Some may want to read into that, but I’ll just say that well-meaning, diligent, ambitious people can disagree about fundamental priorities and strategies.”

Meanwhile, longtime AMI exec and former National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard is reportedly out at the tabloid publisher after his contract expired on March 31. Variety first broke the news.