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Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Kyiv Post gets new CEO

American J. Michael Willard has been named chief executive officer of the Kyiv Post, Ukraine’s oldest and top English-language newspaper and one of the country’s leading news sources.

Mohammad Zahoor, owner of the Kyiv Post, made the announcement on July 18.

Willard is
a veteran marketing, public relations and advertising executive with extensive experience in the United States and Ukraine. In the United States, he worked for eight years as an adviser to the late U.S. Sen. Robert Byrd and also for U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, both of West Virginia.

Willard’s journalistic roots date back to his college days, when he worked on the city desk with the Orlando Sentinel. He went on to work with the Tampa Times and the Springfield (Mass.) Union as well as with United Press International from 1968 to 1976.

Zahoor is a native of Pakistan and a British citizen who sold a Donetsk mini-steel mill for close to $1 billion in 2008. He purchased the newspaper two years ago from its founder, American Jed Sunden.

The Kyiv Post currently has a staff of about 45 people, including 30 in its news division. When asked how he feels now about buying the Kyiv Post, Zahoor said he would never regret the decision.

More details here and on next week's edition of Media Network Plus.

2 comments:

Stanislav said...

Kyiv Post, as I remember it back in 1990th... is a stylish revolutionizing the market elitist (in a good sense) media. One of the market's treasures for sure. I was Ukrainian president I'd recognize KP as a "national asset" :-)

Pawlina said...

Yes I agree, Stanislav! It really is a national treasure for Ukraine... and also for non-Ukrainian speakers interested in what's going on in Ukraine today.

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