Seven Chief Digital Officer resigns

Seven’s Chief Digital Officer Clive Dickens has resigned after 4 years, to take up an external role.

“It’s been a blast – rewarding, challenging, exhilarating, and mostly a lot of fun,” he said.

“I’m particularly proud of all that we have achieved with 7plus, and our streaming platforms across two Olympics, three Australian Opens and four Melbourne Cups. But most of all I’m so proud of my team – they are some of the very best and most talented digital professionals in Australia and it’s been a pleasure working alongside them.”

SWM CEO Tim Worner said: “Clive has had a huge impact on our company and been one of the key members of the team driving our transformation. We have a lot to thank him for.

“Seven is now a very different company from when Clive joined. We have built a world class digital product and technology capability with market-leading consumer products, which five million Australians use each month. Digital revenues and EBIT are growing rapidly across the group.

“SWM WA owns and operates two of the fastest growing digital news brands in Australia in TheWest.com.au and PerthNow.com.au. Pacific has for some time been Australia’s leading and fastest growing female lifestyle digital publisher, and 7plus reached the number one share of commercial free-to-air OTT viewing nine months after launch.

“To get to this point we’ve invested a lot of time and money in recruiting and building our digital capabilities, right across the company. Our long-established succession planning means we have an incredibly talented team of highly experienced executives ready to seamlessly take the lead and aggressively keep up the pace.

“We have a lot to look forward to, with the ongoing success of 7plus, the launch of 7NEWS.com.au and next year’s Tokyo Olympics for which we are currently building the best digital sporting product and platform ever seen in Australia.”

Darren Kerry, current Digital Director, Technology and OTT, has been appointed Director of Digital Product and Technology, responsible for designing and implementing SWM’s digital product road map across the group. He will report to new CTIO Rainer Rhedey.

He joined SWM as Pacific’s Head of Digital & Innovation in early 2015. At the end of 2016 he moved to the role of SWM’s Director of New Digital Products, before being promoted to Director, Technology and OTT in early 2017.

Meanwhile Brook Hall (pictured left), currently Seven Network’s Head of Scheduling, has been appointed Director of Content Scheduling, responsible for content, promotion and marketing strategy across Seven’s digital platforms including 7plus. He retains responsibility for program scheduling across Seven’s broadcast network and will continue to report to programming chief Angus Ross (pictured right).

Hall joined Seven Network in 2010 as a Programming Executive, rising to become Head of Scheduling, with responsibility for scheduling Seven, 7TWO, 7mate, 7flix and 7food. Prior to joining Seven, Hall worked in Programming Research at Foxtel.

Seven also confirms James Bayes, currently Digital Sales Director OTT Video, as Network Digital Sales Director and Will Hedberg, currently Commercial Manager, Digital, as Head of Digital Finance.