In a week in which its two top digital executives got the old heave-ho, Time Inc. on Thursday made a big hire in that realm, raiding Atlantic Media to snag Scott Havens.
Havens, who was president of Atlantic magazine and its related Web properties, including Quartz and The Wire, will be senior vice president, digital, at Time Inc., responsible for digi-development at the big weeklies, including People, Time, Sports Illustrated and Entertainment Weekly.
Havens will also be responsible for the digital development of Fortune, Money, Golf, SI f0or Kids and Time for Kids as well as the soon-to-dissolve joint venture, CNNMoney.
Havens starts March 31 and admits he’s not coming in with any agenda, including how the Fortune website will be built when its current feed, CNNMoney, expires on May 31.
“I honestly don’t have any plans yet,” he said. “They have great brands. I’ll be a fresh set of eyes to amplify and enhance what they are doing there with the continued rise of smartphone and mobile and video. Programmatic advertising will be a big part of the revenue mix. And I’ve had a fair amount of experience with native advertising at The Atlantic.”
Time Inc. said earlier this week it had forged a new alliance with Google to sell programmatic advertising, which essentially auctions off ad space on digital platforms in automated real-time bidding by advertisers.
It is seen as a way to get some price momentum for digital products, which have been under relentless downward pricing pressure in recent years.
The company is still on target for a second-quarter spinoff from Time Warner — and it is feeling the need to convince Wall Street it has hit upon growth vehicles to offset print’s malaise.
To that end, Time.com relaunches itself on March 6, and Sports Illustrated is expected to unveil a big relaunch shortly thereafter with the aim of fitting the Web presence to the new reality of smartphones.
The announcement of Havens’ arrival was made Thursday by Todd Larsen, executive vice president.
Larsen ended up with most of the weeklies in the restructuring unveiled earlier this month when the three-unit structure was wiped out.
Some insiders said it appears as if Havens is now the de facto No. 2 executive to Larsen in the group since all of the GMs for the digital sites will report to Havens.
In the past week, Time Inc. gave the boot to John Cantarella, who was president of digital for the now-disbanded News & Sports Group that included Sports
Illustrated and Time, and to Fran Hauser, who was digital president for the disbanded Style & Entertainment Group that included People and InStyle, as well as the Lifestyle Group that include Health, Cooking Light and Real Simple.