Pippa Leary leads News Corp's new free news & lifestyle publishing leadership team

News Corp Australia’s newly formed free news & lifestyle business unit has unveiled its publishing team to spearhead the next stage of growth.

Led by managing director and publisher, Pippa Leary, the free news & lifestyle division encompasses news.com.au, as well as lifestyle sites such as Escape, Taste.com.au and Body+Soul among others.

Leary said: “Our new team brings together the leading experts in the Australian publishing, video and e-commerce space and reflects our strategic focus to drive both user engagement at scale and strong client outcomes across our suite of properties.”

Pippa Leary

General manager of group strategy, Nitin Goel, takes on the newly created role of general manager, audience, product and marketing. He will lead the strategy to convert audience engagement into client outcomes, optimising the audience experience through data-led insights and digital product management.

Head of ad product & strategy, Ryan Hedditch, has been promoted to general manager of commercial video & audio. He will define ad client product strategies in order to continue driving profitable growth for video, native, display and audio.

General manager of partnerships, Georgi Pell, has been appointed to the new position of general manager of Client Commercial. She will drive optimisation across the suite of free news & lifestyle brands, planning and prioritising client revenue growth.

Director, commercial data, video & product, Paul Blackburn, takes on the new role of director of commercial data & e-commerce. He will work on the strategic commercialisation of data assets through products and partnerships as well as drive the e-commerce strategy.

Rounding out the leadership team is Meagan Gray, who has accepted the newly established role of head of commercial product. She will lead the prioritisation, roadmap development and delivery of portfolio initiatives and lead client product delivery.

The new leadership team comes off the back of News Corp launching its state and communities masthead division in August.

Led by managing director and publisher, Mark Reinke, Reinke appointed John Lehmann to the newly-created role of commercial director of the State and Communities Mastheads, which includes the Herald Sun, The Daily Telegraph, The Courier-Mail, The Advertiser as well as regional, rural and community titles.

See also: Staff shuffles at News Corp with launch of State and Communities Mastheads division

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Top image: L-R: Ryan Hedditch, Meagan Gray, Pippa Leary, Nitin Goel, Georgi Pell, Paul Blackburn.