The publisher of BusinessWeek is bailing to join Salesforce.com, a fast-growing software developer.
BusinessWeek Publisher Geoffrey Dodge leaves three months after he was passed over for the job of BusinessWeek president. That position went instead to Keith Fox, an insider at BusinessWeek publisher McGraw-Hill Cos., who had been running one of the company’s book publishing divisions.
Dodge, who had held the position of senior vice president and publisher of BusinessWeek since November 2004, could not be reached for comment.
There is no replacement for Dodge as of yet.
“We have hired a superstar from an organization we really respect,” said Bruce Francis, vice president of corporate strategy for Salesforce.com, which sells software to businesses.
Dodge’s exit comes at a particularly tough time for the business publications category. The big three in the category – Forbes, Fortune and BusinessWeek – are all down in ad pages for the first half of 2007. Mike Dukmejian, the group publisher of Fortune and Money, was bounced earlier this year, with no replacement yet named.
Business 2.0, a smaller rival in the field, is said to be only days away from ending its run as a Time Inc. magazine. Fast Company, though finally showing a small growth spurt, is still far back in the pack.
Amid all that, Condé Nast has introduced Portfolio into the category, and most observers think that News Corp.’s pending acquisition of the Wall Street Journal parent Dow Jones will make the battle for ad dollars in the space that much more ferocious. News Corp. publishes The Post.
Fox yesterday announced to BW staffers yesterday that it was combining the print sales force and the online sales force and several others into one unit.