Industry Moves: Caroline Little Named Guardian North America CEO

This story was written by Robert Andrews.

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Guardian News & Media (GNM) is staking out its US ambitions farther by appointing a chief executive for north America. Former WashingtonPost.Newsweek Interactive publisher and CEO Caroline Little, who joined GNM's board in July as a special adviser on US expansion, is now coming aboard full-time; she starts in January, based out of both New York and Washington.

Well regarded in the online publishing biz, Little also sits on the boards of the American Press Institute, Grinnell College, the Posse foundation and the Knight Foundation. Joining the Washington Post (NYSE: WPO) in 1997, she led the websites of the DC paper, Newsweek, Slate and TheRoot. She left in April.

GNM has been eyeing up US expansion after finding popularity for its Guardian.co.uk site, which got 61 percent of its 25.9 million uniques from outside its native UK in October, something like 5.5 million from the US according to an estimate last year. The paper hired Michael Tomasky as US editor in Washington last year, launched GuardianAmerica.com and tapped Reuters to sell its web ads stateside, though that deal may be under scrutiny. Then GNM bought paidContent.org publisher ContentNext this July, also as a US beachhead. Little joined GNM's board, as well as our own, later that month. GNM has also expressed a desire to set up shop in India.

Disclosure: ContentNext is a wholly owned subsidiary of Guardian News & Media. Caroline Little also sits on ContentNext's board.


By Robert Andrews