Lisa MacLeod , Head of Digital at Tiso Blackstar Group, South Africa, was elected Vice-President of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers on 7 June 2018 during the 70th WAN-IFRA’s annual congress in Estoril, Portugal. Executives from leading news media companies were also elected to new terms on the Board of WAN-IFRA.
The election took place at the World News Media Congress, World Editors Forum and Women in News Summit in Estoril, Portugal. The event was attended by more than 800 publishers, editors, journalists, and other senior news executives from around the world. The new presidency of WAN-IFRA includes MacLeod, Michael Golden (President), Paul Verwilt (Mediahuis, Belgium), David Callaway (The Street, USA).
Lisa MacLeod, expressing her gratitude for being elected, said, “I am very honoured to be appointed to the board of WAN-IFRA, and grateful for the opportunity to serve this respected organisation at this time. The media industry is undergoing enormous change, primarily through digital transformation and the decline of print, and I hope to bring some of my experience in this area to WAN-IFRA, as an industry body that is trusted and relied on worldwide to lead and educate through such challenge.”
Tiso Blackstar Group , South Africa, is Africa’s largest English-language publisher, and owner of 8 newspapers, 15 websites, music, film and radio businesses. MacLeod is also the former General Manager of Digital for Media24’s 24.com; and a former Head of Operations for FT.com, and FT Managing Editor.
The election of Lisa MacLeod is a step towards WAN-IFRA’S new Strategic Plan for Diversity and Inclusion, a plan to achieve gender balance in its operations and governance bodies by 2020.
Vincent Peyrègne, CEO of WAN-IFRA, commenting on the inception of the plan, said, “I am particularly pleased with the increased diversity we bring into the Board with the election of Lisa MacLeod, the first female Vice President ever in our organisation. Lisa MacLeod’s election is the first significant outcome of our Strategic Plan for Diversity and Inclusion passed by our Board of directors during a previous meeting on December 2017. The election also takes place at a special time, as we celebrated the 70th anniversary of our association and presented in Estoril the most gender-balanced Congress in the history of the organsation. Our action plan goes deep into the organisation and the governance of WAN-IFRA. We have a lot more to achieve in the coming months.”
At the same meeting, seven other executives from leading news media companies were elected to new terms on the Board of WAN-IFRA. The new Board members of WAN-IFRA are:
Alexander Mitteräcker, Publisher of Der Standard (Austria)
Stoyana Georgieva, Founder and Editor in Chief of the online news site mediapool.bg (Bulgaria)
Juan Guillermo Amaya Salcedo, CEO, El Tiempo (Colombia)
Fatemah Farag, CEO Welad Elbalad Media (Egypt)
Shailesh Gupta, CEO Jagran Prakashan (India)
Karin Pettersson, Director Public Policy, Schibsted (Sweden)
Yildirim Demiroren, CEO, Demiroren Holding (Turkey)
