The board of directors of F+W Media has fired most of the publisher’s entire upper management team, replacing them with Greg Osberg, who has been named interim CEO. The only high-ranking exec to remain at the company is CFO Jennifer Graham.
Gone from the publisher are CEO Tom Beusse and lieutenants Joe Siebert and Joe Romello. Beusse was hired in January 2016 to succeed David Nussbaum, who left late in 2015 to head up America’s Test Kitchen.
In his letter to employees and in a brief interview with PW, Osberg said his mission is to accelerate F+W’s efforts to move from a print business to one that offers print and digital products, holds events, and engages in e-commerce. He said his three priorities are finding operational efficiencies (Folio: magazine reports a number of layoffs in December), growing revenue, and moving ahead with F+W's digital transformation. He said he has no preconceived ideas about F+W and will be looking at all aspects of the business.
To help him speed up F+W's transformation, the board has also has hired the media and publishing advisory firm FTI Consulting. Osberg said he will be working with Ken Harding, the leader of FTI's publishing group, to accelerate F+W's efforts to take advantage of the opportunities that exist in today's changing media landscape.
Osberg told employees that his own background “focuses on digitally transforming traditional media companies with legacy operations in print media and launching web-based businesses.” He had served as publisher and CEO of Philadelphia Media Networks (which includes The Philadelphia Inquirer, Daily News, and Philly.com) and as president and worldwide publisher of Newsweek and Newsweek.com, both of which were in the midst of transformation when Osberg joined.
CORRECTION: This story previously misspelled Ken Harding's surname as "Hardy." We regret the error.
