i, Head of Digital

The fastest growing and most trusted news site in the UK (PAMCo, March 2019) is looking for a leader to take it to the next level.

Working as part of the senior editorial executive team, you will manage a growing department of digital specialists, including journalists and analysts, and will work closely with senior members of the editorial, commercial and product teams.

Your core role will be to lead audience growth, building loyalty through increased engagement and retention; to develop key content areas including politics, opinion and TV; develop our digital subscription products; and scale up i’s audience across our app editions and inews.co.uk.

Based in the i newsroom in Kensington, you will also collaborate with teams across the jpimedia network of regional titles. In 2018, inews.co.uk increased its audience by 457%, and was last month named the most trusted digital news brand in the UK, in research by PAMCo.

This is a great opportunity for a journalist with high-level experience of overseeing audience growth in digital media to join a thriving publishing operation at an exciting time of rapid development.

Responsibilities:

Reporting to the Editor-in-Chief of i, you will:

• Develop and implement our audience growth strategy for i’s subscription app and for inews.co.uk.
• Manage a team of 18 (soon 23), which includes reporters, analysts, e-commerce and social media specialists, and work across the wider editorial staff of 90+.
• Work closely with other members of i’s senior editorial team to create brilliant digital journalism and maximise opportunities for audience growth.
• Optimise for loyalty, ensuring your team delivers high-quality, differentiated content that keeps people coming back.
• Deliver actionable insights across editorial to build audience and revenue growth.
• Produce guidelines and training for the team to provide best-in-class working practices for audience development.
• Work closely with commercial teams to ensure audience development strategies dovetail effectively with revenue objectives.
• Work closely with product teams to innovate and to ensure that user experience on inews.co.uk attracts and engages a loyal audience.
• Communicate strategy and progress against audience KPIs to our wider team and senior executives.
• Work closely with colleagues across jpimedia to source brilliant journalism and leverage opportunities for publishing at scale.
• Maintain active knowledge of the competitive landscape, market innovations, new industry guidelines, and developments in key industry areas.

Required Skills:

• A demonstrable background in building significant audiences in a digital news environment.
• Deep understanding of data and analytics and how to derive actionable insight which can be used to inform content and product strategy.
• Experience in driving direct reader revenues, for example via subscriptions.
• Expertise in a senior editorial role, demonstrating the experience and people skills required to lead in a newsroom environment.
• A background in SEO as well as a deep understanding of how to drive engaged audiences through social media and other platforms.
• Be a strong leader and influencer – and a natural collaborator.
• A thought-leader in audience development techniques.

Apply by completing the application form below.