Immediate Media Co‘s founding chief executive Tom Bureau will become chairman of the specialist magazine and content company.
His replacement in the CEO role will be Sean Cornwell, who joined Immediate in 2021 as platforms chief executive with responsibility for its digital businesses – including its magazine brands, podcast portfolio, and product and tech, audience development, e-commerce and affiliates teams.
Bureau has been founding chief executive of Immediate since 2011 when the company was formed from the merger of Magicalia, Origin Publishing and BBC Magazines.
He will remain chief executive of Burda International, a role he also took on in 2021 after overseeing Immediate’s sale from Exponent Private Equity to German-based media and tech company Hubert Burda Media in 2017.
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Cornwell’s senior leadership roles before joining Immediate have included chief executive of Direct Ferries, chief digital and marketing officer of Travelex, and MD international of dating platform eHarmony. He also spent three years at Google as group product marketing manager EMEA.
Immediate said that as platforms CEO Cornwell has “overseen the scaled growth” of its digital subscriptions business, including the launch of premium paid-for digital products in the food, history and gardening divisions and the acquisition of subscription-based weight management platform Nutracheck in November.
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The company said it now has more than 500,000 digital subscribers and over 1.4 million in total across digital and print.
Bureau said: “Having worked closely with Sean for the last two years, I know he shares the values which have made Immediate such a great company and I’m confident Immediate will continue to grow and develop under his leadership.
“I’m immensely proud of the success we’ve achieved since Immediate was launched in 2011, we’ve transformed from a primarily print based company to a strong, diversified multiplatform one, and I’d like to thank all of our teams and people who’ve been key to our continued success. I can’t wait to get started in my new role.”
Bureau and Cornwell will both take up their new roles on 1 June.
Immediate Media’s brands include BBC Good Food, BBC Gardeners’ World, Radio Times, BBC Top Gear and BBC Music Magazine.
[Read more: How to keep subscribers: What’s working at Hearst, Immediate and Mark Allen Group]
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