nextmedia, a Forum Media Group Company, has announced the appointment of editor and journalist Andrew Birmingham (left) as group managing editor of its B2B portfolio of titles, the most senior editorial appointment since new management was appointed to nextmedia in 2020. It comes as nextmedia seeks to significantly grow its B2B arm and invest further in local editorial that will directly and positively benefit leading industry mastheads CRN, iTNews and Business IT among others.
Andrew Birmingham is one of Australia’s longest tenured and respected enterprise and IT journalists and editors. In 2013, Birmingham founded Which-50, which grew immensely under his leadership and was acquired by Boardroom Media last year. Prior to this, Birmingham was associate publisher and general manager of Financial Review Group, and for ten years was at IDG Australia as its COO and deputy managing director.
Under his new remit, Birmingham will be responsible for managing the local team of journalists and the editorial direction across nextmedia’s IT portfolio. He will also support nextmedia’s senior management team in the growth of complementary areas in which these IT publications can further add to the awareness and education of the IT industry, including industry events and forums.
Birmingham’s appointment reflects a strategy that includes strong investment in local in-house editorial as a key to its growth. This includes Ry Crozier who continues to lead iTNews as its editor-in-chief.
“We welcome Andrew to nextmedia during what is a particularly dynamic time in the IT industry. What has become very clear to us is that our portfolio of mastheads play a very important role in bringing and keeping the Australian IT community together, be it through our content or, increasingly, our special reports and events. It all starts with high quality, local editorial which is reflected in our excitement in bringing Andrew on board such that he can drive this even further for us,” said Darren McNally (right), general manager of nextmedia’s B2B publishing department, nextB2B.
“Excitingly, a lot has changed at nextmedia in the last 12 months, including a new management team with a clear strategy that has investment in local journalism at its core. At a time when global syndication and ad-hoc freelance work drive much of the industry locally, we are very buoyant about the sector and will be continuing to invest, while providing an environment and culture for our editorial team to grow their own careers and thrive.”
“The last 12 months have seen a huge acceleration in the digitalisation of business. That creates a target rich environment for journalists. The work that teams on iTNews and CRN do is critical to ensuring their audiences are equipped with the information they need to make critical business decisions, and often also to understanding the wider impact of that work,” said Andrew Birmingham upon his appointment.
“I’m looking forward to working with the award winning editorial teams at nextmedia, and to meeting and learning from the readers of both titles in the coming weeks.”
Birmingham officially commenced at nextmedia this week.