by Edward Qualtrough

News UK CEO Rebekah Brooks appoints Financial Times CIO Christina Scott as new CTO

News
Dec 07, 2015
CareersMedia and Entertainment Industry

News UKCEO Rebekah Brooks has hired Financial Times CIO Christina Scott as the media organisation’s new Chief Technology Officer, an appointment the recently-reinstated Chief Executive described as “a coup” to secure a “key player in our mission to renew the way we do business”. [Now read: News UK CTO Christina Scott on digital transformation and change management]

Scott, a high-flyer in the CIO 100 for the past two years, has been CIO at the FT since May 2012, was made SVP of technology for Pearson Professional in January 2014, and most recently was named Chief Product and Information Officer for the 127-year-old title in September 2014. Starting in the 2016 and reporting directly to CEO Brooks, Scott will run the corporate IT, technology and digital development teams at News UK.

Brooks said: “I’ve no doubt Christina will be a key player in our mission to renew the way we do business here and harness the vast potential of the digital world to ensure sustainable success for our journalism.”

Former BBC, BT and ITV Digital executive Scott was a popular speaker at the 2013 CIO Summit, and spoke to this title in a CIO Profile in June 2013 about the FT’s data strategy, moving to the cloud, embracing digital and reviewing it’s technology suppliers.

News UKannounced that Scott would work alongside “Sarah Wood of Unruly, COO David Dinsmore, CFO Chris Longcroft and Editors Tony Gallagher, John Witherow and Martin Ivens”.

When Brooks returned as CEO of News UK in September 2015 having been cleared in the phone hacking scandal, she named editor of The Sun David Dinsmore as the company’s new Chief Operating Officer. Dinsmore had been previously been Director of Operations for News International prior to becoming The Sun editor, with CIOChris Taylorbecoming COO with responsibility for technology upon Dinsmore’s change of role.

Taylor has since left his role at News UK, Business Insider has reported. During his time at News International and News UK Taylor helped oversee a major infrastructure migration to the cloud, implemented The Times paywall, and was part of the management executive which saw The Times return to profit in 2014 for the first time in 13 years – bringing an end to a stretch of losses that totalled nearly £400 million.