Wednesday, November 17, 2010

GreenBkk Tech | Steve Forbes gives up CEO reins at Forbes Media

Steve Forbes gives up CEO reins at Forbes Media

Credit: Reuters (http://www.reuters.com)

Steve Forbes, president and chief executive of Forbes Inc. and chief executive and editor-in-chief of Forbes Magazine, speaks during the opening gala of the Forbes Global CEO Conference in Singapore September 8, 2008.
Credit: Reuters/Vivek Prakash

By Alex Dobuzinskis

(Reuters) - Media veteran Mike Perlis was named president and chief executive officer of Forbes Media, taking over executive duties from Steve Forbes and his brother Tim.

Steve Forbes, who made failed runs for U.S. president in 1996 and 2000 in the Republican primary, had been CEO of the company and Tim Forbes was the chief operating officer.

Steve Forbes will remain chairman and editor-in-chief of the privately held Forbes Media. Forbes magazine was founded in 1917 by B.C. Forbes, establishing a company that his descendants have presided over since then.

The bi-weekly Forbes Magazine has a circulation of over 900,000 and its website gets 18 million unique monthly visits.

"The whole move here is to bring outside energy in to complement all the great things they did with the platform and build value," Perlis told Reuters in a phone interview.

Perlis most recently was general partner at SoftBank Capital, which invested in online news and information companies Beliefnet, Huffington Post and Associated Content.

Before that, he had been chairman and CEO of IDG Peterborough, the publisher of Gentleman's Quarterly.

Perlis said that his "kooky background" combining print and online media should give him a good foundation for success at Forbes. He also said that Tim Forbes was instrumental in bringing him to Forbes Media.

"I'm not going to be day-to-day involved in the management but I will stay involved and work with Mike and do what I can to be supportive and helpful," Tim Forbes was quoted as saying in a blog post at Forbes.com.

Tim Forbes will remain as chairman of Forbes Digital and will be a member of the company's board, but Perlis said he will no longer be COO and that no one will hold that title.

Perlis said that he expects Tim Forbes "to be hard at work at least for the foreseeable future" at the company.

"The magazine is in good shape and will get better as the advertising economy improves -- We have every intention of continuing to produce the magazine," Perlis said.

Aside from the magazine and website, Forbes Media also publishes ForbesLife and ForbesWoman magazines and owns the websites RealClearPolitics.com and RealClearSports.com.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis: Editing by Carol Bishopric)

Credit: Reuters (http://www.reuters.com)


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