New Board Proposed For Gannett, New Media

Gannett and New Media Investment Group Inc. announced on Tuesday who is expected to sit on the combined company’s board of directors following the completion of a merger that would create the largest U.S. media company by print circulation.

The proposed combination of Gannett and GateHouse, owned by New Media, was announced in August and has earned the support of each company's board. The merger goes before shareholders for a vote on Nov. 14.

According to USAToday, the new board will have nine members, including Michael Reed, New Media CEO and chairman, who will serve as the new board’s chairman, according to the joint announcement. 

New Media and Gannett have said their combination makes sense because they can shed overlapping costs, gain national scale to attract advertisers and pursue a "digital transformation."

Although New Media is set to acquire Gannett, the combined company would be called Gannett and take on Gannett's headquarters in McLean, Virginia.

In addition to Reed, there will be five independent directors from New Media, and three directors from Gannett:

• Kevin Sheehan: Listed as lead independent director, Sheehan joined the New Media Board at its inception and also served on the GateHouse board from October 2006 to November 2013. He has a more than 30-year career leading large corporations, including as CEO and chief financial officer of publicly traded companies.
• Mayur Gupta: Joined the New Media board in October 2019 and is the chief marketing officer at Freshly, a growing food-tech company.
• Theodore Janulis: Joined the New Media board in January 2014. Janulis served in executive leadership roles across financial services companies for over twenty years, including CRT Greenwich LLC, Aurora Bank FSB and Lehman Brothers.
• John Jeffry Louis: Louis has served as chairman of Gannett’s board since Gannett’s spin-off in June 2015. He was the co-founder and former Chairman of Parson Capital, a private equity and venture capital firm.
• Maria Miller: Joined the New Media board in October 2019 and has a more than 30-year career in innovative marketing and digital communications.
• Debra Sandler: Has served as the chair of the Gannett board’s nominating and public responsibility committee since Gannett’s spin-off in June 2015. She is the president and chief executive officer of La Grenade Group, LLC, a privately held consulting firm advising on marketing innovation and business development.
• Laurence Tarica: Joined the New Media board in 2014. He also was president and chief operating officer of Jimlar Corporation, one of the oldest footwear companies in America, until its sale in 2010.
• Barbara Wall: She has served as the chief legal officer of Gannett since its spin-off in June 2015 and also served as its interim chief operating officer in 2019 and previously held various other positions with Gannett’s former parent, where she worked for thirty years.