Guardian News & Media (GNM) has appointed a chief executive for North America. Former WashingtonPost.Newsweek Interactive publisher and CEO Caroline Little, who joined GNM’s board in July as a special adviser on U.S. expansion, is now coming aboard full-time; she starts in January, based out of both New York and Washington.
Well regarded in the online publishing business, Little also sits on the boards of the American Press Institute, Grinnell College, the Posse foundation and the Knight Foundation. Joining the Washington Post (NYSE: WPO) in 1997, she led the websites of the DC paper, Newsweek, Slate and TheRoot. She left in April.
GNM’s interest in expanding in the U.S. stems in part from the reception to its Guardian.co.uk site, which got 61 percent of its 25.9 million uniques from outside its native UK in October; about 5.5 million of those uniques were from the U.S., according to an estimate last year. The paper hired Michael Tomasky as U.S. editor in Washington last year, launched GuardianAmerica.com and tapped Reuters to sell its web ads stateside. GNM bought ContentNext this July. Little joined GNM’s board, as well as our own, later that month. GNM has also expressed a desire to set up shop in India.
Full disclosure: ContentNext, which owns paidContent:UK, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Guardian News & Media. Little also sits on ContentNext’s board