paidContent adds CEO, Chief Sales Officer and a Director

Earlier today, Rafat Ali announced some changes at ContentNext Media:

I am stepping out of my position as CEO (something I was never comfortable with, as people who know me can attest...I always liked the Editor and Publisher title better); but will keep the role of Chairman.

Additions & changes:

Nathan Richardson, Chief Executive Officer

• 2007: Country Director of the International Rescue Committee’s operations in Liberia
• 2005-2006: Sr. VP & GM of Dow Jones Online "which includes The Wall Street Journal Online, MarketWatch, Barron’s Online" (source)
• 2002-2005: general manager of Yahoo! Finance

Patrick Dignan, Chief Sales Officer

• most recently with Forbes.com [as] director of East Coast sales for the business website
• previously publisher of Family PC and Saveur magazines
• previously advertising director for Philly.com

Charlie Koones, new board member

• previously president and publisher of Variety

Staci D. Kramer, promoted to Co-Editor and EVP

The board of directors addition is worth a direct quote: "we are expanding our already-strong board to bring on key expertise in the entertainment media sector". (emphasis added) Looks to me like a clue...

Here are some numbers for their Web sites:

#				Blog		T Rank		Alexa		Primary Category
1				paidContent.org		437		23,529		Media News
2				paidContent:UK		15,796		292,892		Media News
3				mocoNews.net		3,701		106,006		Mobile
4				contentSutra.com		28,253		54,074		Media News

Legend
	Blogcosm profile of this blog
	Link directly to the blog

ContextNext Media also hosts conferences and mixers.

Quick update: Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine weighs in.

Whenever anyone doubts the potential of the web to grow new journalistic enterprises, I point to PaidContent.org. Rafat Ali and his colleagues have built an incredible venture that hosts more tenacious reporting than most any news organization I know. I check it more than any other news source I depend upon. Now they announce a bunch of big appointments with big talent. It’s an impressive path of growth managed with cagey strategic care by Rafat.