Ninemsn gets new CEO

Microsoft-flavoured media company ninemsn has appointed a new chief executive offer, Joe Pollard, who will start next week.

Joe Pollard
(Credit: ninemsn)

Pollard, who replaces Tony Faure after he left the company in August this year, has worked for the last two years with related company PBL Media as the director of sales and marketing, and before that he worked for 10 years with Nike in various roles.

Ninemsn chairman Ian Law was confident that Pollard would bring the business forward. Those at ninemsn have had the chance to watch her in action as she worked with the ninemsn business for the last five months, restructuring its commercial division, he said.

"Joe will focus strongly on building the creativity and leveraging the substantial assets of both PBL Media and Microsoft. This will include driving commercial opportunities across the ninemsn platform, and the related business units within PBL Media in Nine, and ACP Magazines," Law said in a statement.

Microsoft was also pleased with the appointment. "Joe has an excellent reputation in the industry and brings with her a wealth of international experience in developing great digital content coupled with a strong knowledge of the Australian media landscape," Alex Stewart, general manager, consumer and online at Microsoft Australia said in a statement.

Pollard voiced her excitement about the role and leading the firm's pool of staff.

The executive takes over a company that faces current challenges in the marketplace. Ninemsn has lost a number of senior executives over the past year as the future of the Web portal model used by ninemsn, Yahoo7 and other firms has begun to be questioned.

The keynote speaker at the Web Directions South conference in Sydney this morning did an informal poll by asking for a show of hands to see how many in the audience used portals to get their information. Few of the early technology adopter audience raised their hands.

ZDNet.com.au's Renai LeMay contributed to this article.