What Spanfeller says is normal is, of course, a reflection of his own values, which evidently rank transparency, diversity, and inclusion as secondary concerns to financial success. I was also hiring a good portion of these jobs before I actually took over day to day control of the company. About their hires, he wrote, I introduced Steve and Lance to Mike McAvoy, but I did not make the hires. Vice president for west coast sales Steve Thompson, who worked with Spanfeller at, Vice president for east coast sales Sean Flanagan, who worked with Spanfeller at. (The other woman on the executive leadership team, general counsel Lynn Oberlander, left the company this week.) Email us. She said Spanfeller told her that he was unaware of what she did at the company, and that she replied: That doesnt help, because that says you not only didnt know what I did, but you also had no interest in meeting the only woman on the revenue leadership team who is an SVP who has been successful, according to meeting her revenue and finance goals. She said the conversation ended with Spanfeller saying, Im sorry, I dont know what else you want me to say., Spanfeller confirmed the womans account to Deadspin. [10] Spanfeller was also responsible for advertising sales on the magazine's website and that of Yahoo! They requested anonymity to speak candidly but their identities are known to Insider. Or as Carmichael explained, If you dont know what a herb is, youre probably a herb.. Whenever a publication shuts down, as has happened more and more over the last few years, it undergoes a public eulogizing by its employees, the friends of its employees, the people who wanted to work there, and most importantly the readers, whose tributes are . In one instance in which Spanfeller tried to promote a woman within the company, his offer came with strings attached. Jack Crosbie, a former Splinter contractor and co-owner of Discourse, said that traffic declined at Splinter because G/O did not refill lost positions. She asked McAvoy, then her immediate supervisor, for the opportunity to interview for the position, citing her leadership of the revenue division, her construction of a diverse team, and her renown in the industry. (Though the source spoke in great detail about her experience, she requested her name not be used because she didnt want it to affect her future employment opportunities.) My territory has been cut in half. "[17], "Great Hill Partners Agrees to Acquire Gizmodo Media Group", "Great Hill Partners Acquires Gizmodo Media Group", "President & CEO, Jim Spanfeller Named as IAB Chairman", "Alumni Album: Helping Us Connect to the Web", "Advertising; 4 Young Executives On Move at Newsweek", "Playboy Hires 2 New Execs; Title of Publisher Goes to 1", "New Gizmodo boss Jim Spanfeller is an old school digital media vet", "After Days Of Resignations, The Last Of The Deadspin Staff Has Quit", "Deadspin Is ZombifiedBut Gawker's Content Warriors Fight On", "The Media-Sensational Rise and Fall of "Jim Spanfeller Is a Herb", "GMG Union votes no confidence in G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jim_Spanfeller&oldid=1074755870, This page was last edited on 2 March 2022, at 00:52. Use this information as you see fit. These two highly talented HR executives then met with a number of people around our company including representatives of the unions., When asked why Spanfeller didnt follow this thorough search process before filling seven key positions with his former coworkers, he blamed his hiring practices on the financial shape of the company. Mr. Rich, who will report to G/O Media Chief Executive Jim Spanfeller, . The sales employee (who is not an SVP) wasnt surprised to hear that Spanfeller didnt know what she did. "We needed to change a lot of things, and change is hard.".
Ex-Deadspin EIC Jim Rich resigns in latest turmoil at G/O Media We have no credibility in writing about ourselves. View Jim Spanfeller's professional profile on LinkedIn. Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company. I think it makes him a bad role model for the rest of his team.. Announcing Persauds hire on July 10, Spanfeller wrote this of the process: After a very fulsome search where we interviewed dozens of qualified candidates we identified two finalists. All rights reserved. Six days after the SVPs exchange with McAvoy, Spanfeller sent an email to the entire staff announcing G/O Medias new company values. In a follow-up meeting with Spanfeller about the story, she suggested that hard financial data might not be their audiences central interest. Steve Thompson, 55, was installed over a female vice president who had been running west coast sales for two and a half years. Everything theyve done in reaction to it is the herbiest shit I could possibly imagine. I was sorry and that is accurate, he said. James J. Spanfeller serves as President & Chief Executive Officer of Forbes.com, a leading media Internet company, and as Executive Vice President of Electronic Publishing for . Jim Spanfeller @JimSpanfeller Founder of http://TheDailyMeal.comand http://TheActiveTimes.com. Multiple sources say that Spanfeller reached out to VP of media operations Brad Klancnik to tell him he was a valuable employee and that the new owners would like him to stay at the company, but female VPs say he did not relay such messages to them. Never mind the recent exodus of company leadership under his tenure, including the editorial director, chief financial officer, and chief revenue officer. [4] He soon switched to the business side of the paper, and later took a tour through Europe. Im shocked he would call that a good presentation, said the employee who was in the meeting.
Former Daily News Editor in Chief Is Tapped to Run Deadspin Multiple employees on the tech team say the chief technology officer, Jesse Knight, has repeatedly shown himself unable or unwilling to stand up to Spanfeller and advocate for his team and best practice standards. For the life of me, I am not sure how you can have a legal review without a complete story and I cannot imagine how you can consider your work to be objective without reviewing the answers to the questions that you have asked. Its something that Im working to improve. She told Deadspin she was surprised that Spanfeller seemed to know little about her team, which last year won Digidays best content studio award.. At the same time we are still exploring all options to get this work done by August 15th.. If I had known, I would have been happy to interview her and consider her for the role., On June 20, the next time Spanfeller was in Chicago, the SVP met with him to ask why she had been overlooked. It was four days old.
Deadspin Editor Quits, Rails Against Bosses: 'I've Been Repeatedly Lied Views. He started screaming at me, Who told you you were allowed to speak about audience? "I think that most media company CEOs probably are as involved as I am," Spanfeller said. The anger stems from Spanfellers apparent disregard for his own stated company values, which include a commitment to diversity and inclusion.
Jim Spanfeller - CEO - G/O Media | LinkedIn Endnotes [1] Statement from G/O Media: "Some reports have miscast Jim Spanfeller as a private equity businessman when, in fact, he has spent his entire career in editorial-driven businesses. Spanfeller Media is working to redefine content for the digital era. Youre not qualified. A week after Spanfeller insisted to Varietythat he did not plan to cut our way to growth, the CEO fired 25 employees, including in top positions, such as axing former Gizmodo Media Group editorial director Susie Banikarim. G/O Media, from a business perspective, has turned a corner, Spanfeller says. The post, published Tuesday evening, proved wildly popular on Twitter. In one case, sources say Spanfeller did offer to promote a woman to run human resources, but on the condition she fire another woman at the company as her first order of business. We sent a request for an explanation and did not receive a response. Jim Justice speaks during President Donald Trump's political rally inside the Big Sandy Superstore Arena in Huntington on Thursday. The confusion stems from a lack of communication. I have stood up for and advocated for my team since the day I started at G/O. , in respect of a candidate, means the name of the political party that has endorsed him or her or the word "independent", as the case may be, included in the nomination paper in accordance with subparagraph 66 (1) (a) (v). Then, in early June, former Onion CEO Mike McAvoy, whountil he was separated from the company on July 11had been leading sales across all the sites, told the SVP that Spanfeller had hired two new sales leaders, Flanagan and Thompson. The four women who Spanfeller counts as major hires include two he hired (head of talent and deputy counsel); one he promoted from within to executive managing editor; and a yet-to-be-filled position he says he plans to offer to a woman. The other is still in college., Four of nine major hires have been women, Spanfeller said. It has introduced real uncertainty in to stocks, and Trump's agenda has become shaky. Jim Spanfeller has 2 current jobs as Founder at The Daily Meal and Chief Executive Officer at G/O Media. In an email read to Deadspin, McAvoy agreed that she was qualified for the role and said he would talk with Spanfeller to ensure she was interviewed for the new opportunity, which had not been posted publicly. (Spanfeller says this is inaccurate and that he did consider other candidates for the editorial director role, but Paul quickly rose to the top after he expressed an interest in the position.) Three of the men Spanfeller hired were installed over successful women who had been at the company for years. "We have billions of dollars available to go out and buy and make this a bigger company, and that would really be our desire," Gaffney said. "We are happy to hear that the company is profitable and financially stable enough for Jim Spanfeller to consider further acquisitions, and look forward to welcoming more workers into our union," the G/O Media union said in a statement. While cleaning house and bringing in some trusted former colleagues is not entirely uncommon in private-equity acquisitions, Spanfeller filled nearly his entire top layer of management without any public recruitment process; the only woman hired as a department head, head of talent Angela Persaud, was also the only person at that level whose job was posted publicly. Have a tip we should know? They are parti pris, which is why the overwhelming majority do not do so and many will not even report on rivals for the same reason. My management style has been widely reported on over the years and the picture you are painting does not comport with that. (Pontius declined to comment.
WV Gov. Justice switching political parties, returning to GOP While these high-ranking women were being overlooked and bypassed, Spanfeller evidently was concerned about retaining at least one other VP on the sales side. In addition to the removal of the post itself, Carmichael also discovered that shes now unable to use her personal Kinja account at all. Former SVP of sales and operations Kurt Mueller had left the company, and McAvoy told the woman Spanfeller was hiring his replacement. The key journalistic properties descended from . [2], In 2019, G/O Media's sports blog Deadspin received media attention when all of its writers and editors resigned after an edict given by upper management to "stick to sports". And as the only woman on the previous revenue leadership team, I started to wonder if women were being considered for leadership roles. Indeed, Spanfeller told Deadspin that he first contacted Rogers about the job on June 11. Heres The REAL Clip, Christian Walker GOES OFF on Predator Matt Schlapp for Allegedly Groping Male Campaign Staffer: Hes Done This Before, Im Sure!, LOL. The differences were as granular as whether to call published pieces "blogs" or "stories." The Daily Meal was acquired by Tronc in 2016. I have communicated our timeline concerns to Jim and he understands that development is not an exact science and that goals may not be hit, Knight told Deadspin. This conversation inspired her to write a post on the personal account she still holds on G/Os publishing platform, Kinja, titled Jim Spanfeller Is a Herb., Pronounced with a hard h, herbs are difficult to define, but typified by the individuals seen in this earlier Carmichael post about herbitude. G/O Media, the company which ran Deadspin, was acquired by the private equity group Great Hill Partners, which installed Spanfeller as CEO and gave him one mission: Make them richer. That evening, the woman received an email from McAvoy telling her that the SVP of marketing job had been filled with someone who worked with Spanfeller at Forbes. According to Great Hill Partners website, Spanfeller has led comparable media platforms and positioned them for successful strategic exit, which probably means something to someone, somewhere, but Spanfeller is perhaps best known for dramatically increasing Forbes.coms focus on digital advertising (Spanfeller also previously served as chairman of the Interactive Advertising Bureau). Great Hill Partners and current CEO Jim Spanfeller, formerly of Forbes, bought these sites and the Onion from Univision Communications Inc. in April. Over the last few weeks, during their attempts to hinder or prevent the publication of this story, Maidment and Spanfeller invoked concerns about Deadspins credibility in covering G/O Media. After two years of mainly working from home, the company wants everyone back in the office four days a week. The post was so popular, in fact, that it apparently gained the attention and ire of Spanfeller himself (perhaps partially due to the fact that someone registered Deadspin2.com and set it to redirect to Carmichaels post). Spanfellers executive assistant set up a time for us to meet. Spanfeller did offer to promote one female employee, former chief of staff for The Onion Katie Pontius, and make her the companys head of talent, but the position fell through after he demanded that she fire newsroom editorial director Susie Banikarimas her first management move, which Pontius refused, according to sources who spoke to Deadspin. 4. Like many media companies, G/O Media's advertising business was battered by the pandemic. Why Ketanji Brown Jackson Split With the Courts Liberals in a 54 Decision, the firing of beloved editor Barry Petchesky, According to Great Hill Partners website, increasingly insisted on directing editorial coverage. She said Spanfeller didnt have many questions for her, describing him as apathetic. Spanfeller seemed not to recall this interaction, telling Deadspin that the sales team was not covering direct clients.. Deadspin cited an account from a former writer at The Daily Meal, a food and beverage site that Spanfeller founded in 2015, who claims her former boss once started screaming at her because she voiced concerns about writing a story on the websites earning figures, which she felt she was not qualified for. Its motivation is simply to publish true and interesting stories, and to make sure the things powerful people would rather stay in the dark end up in the light of day. The survey on Deadspin, however, had some serious issues, he said. We have also learned the tech team has been asked to post the survey again. Katie then refused to assume the HR lead role around other wider layoffs at the company.